MAD project implemented two protocols designed for reliable content delivery. File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport (FLUTE) is a protocol for the unidirectional delivery of files over the Internet, which is particularly suited to multicast networks. FLUTE builds on Asyncronous Layered Coding (ALC), the base protocol designed for massively scalable multicast distribution. Asynchronous Layered Coding combines the Layered Coding Transport (LCT) building block, a multiple rate congestion control building block and the Forward Error Correction (FEC) building block to provide congestion controlled reliable asynchronous delivery of content to an unlimited number of concurrent receivers from a single sender.
MAD-ALCLIB library is an implementation of the ALC/LCT protocol, along with the RLC congestion control protocol and Compact No-Code, Simple XOR and Reed-Solomon FEC schemes. Session Description Protocol (SDP) can be used to describe FLUTE sessions. MAD-SDPLIB library is an implementation of "SDP Descriptors for FLUTE" Internet-Draft. MAD-FLUTELIB is an implementation of the FLUTE protocol, and it builds on MAD-ALCLIB and MAD-SDPLIB libraries. MAD-FLUTE is a multicast file transfer tool build on the above mentioned libraries.
The MAD project was carried out at Tampere University of Technology (TUT) during years 2003-2004. Currently the software is used in the DelCo project and new releases has and will be done every now and then.