Robust and energy efficient routing for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

In this thesis, we propose a robust and energy efficient routing scheme for wireless sensor networks. There are two main contributions. Firstly, we improve the existing neighbor list management method by shortening the time required for neighbor join and detection of link breakage. Neighbor join here refers to the process of neighbor selection for data forwarding. Neighbor join and link breakage detection are two important features for the mission critical wireless sensor networks which are deployed for military purposes. Secondly, for sensor networks to operate efficiently, we propose that sensor nodes in the network maintain information about their two next-hops, namely the primary and backup next hops. Different strategies have been designed to utilize the information about the two next-hops in order to reduce the transmission cost or increasing the end-to-end reliability. The strategies are based on Markov Decision Process or Bayes rule. They have been implemented in the NS-2 simulator. Simulation results show that the end-to-end reliability is improved and the transmission cost is also reduced with the proposed routing scheme.