A Constrained Multipath Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

A deployed wireless sensor network must be managed by an efficient and reliable routing protocol to overcome node degradation and failure, RF communication disruptions and limited energy reserves. RF transmissions are inherently broadcast. Existing research proposals for routing protocol designs typically use either flooding (routing same packet over all available paths) or selective broadcasting (routing packet over a specified path). Research has shown that routing protocols that use selective broadcasting exhibits better performance with lower communication overheads. Flooding-based protocols typically require lower control overheads and exhibit better fault tolerance. This paper presents two variations of a novel routing protocol, called SOS, which uses constrained broadcasting (packet routed over small subset of available paths) to adapt to network failures and disruptions. Simulations show that SOS compares favourably with existing selective broadcasting and flooding-based protocols in terms of performance, reliability and energy efficiency.