ALBA-R: Load-Balancing Geographic Routing Around Connectivity Holes in Wireless Sensor Networks SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

This paper presents ALBA-R, a protocol for convergecasting in wireless sensor networks. ALBA-R features the cross-layer integration of geographic routing with contention-based MAC for relay selection and load balancing (ALBA) as well as a mechanism to detect and route around connectivity holes (Rainbow). ALBA and Rainbow (ALBA-R) together solve the problem of routing around a dead end without overhead intensive techniques such as graph planarization and face routing. The protocol is localized and distributed, and adapts efficiently to varying traffic and node deployments. Through extensive ns2-based simulations we show that ALBA-R significantly outperforms other convergecasting protocols, especially in critical traffic conditions and low density networks. The performance of ALBA-R is also evaluated through experiments in an outdoor testbed of TinyOS motes. Our results show that ALBA-R is an energy efficient protocol that achieves remarkable performance in terms of packet delivery ratio and end-to-end latency in different scenarios, thus being suitable for real network deployments. Keywords—Wireless sensor networks, cross-layer routing, connectivity holes.