GRAdient Cost Establishment (GRACE) for an Energy-Aware Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

In Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), the nodes have limitations in terms of energy-constraint, unreliable links, and frequent topology change. In this paper we propose an energy-aware routing protocol, that outperforms the existing ones with an enhanced network lifetime and more reliable data delivery. Major issues in the design of a routing strategy in wireless sensor networks are to make efficient use of energy and to increase reliability in data delivery. The proposed approach reduces both energy consumption and communication-bandwidth requirements and prolongs the lifetime of the wireless sensor network. Using both analysis and extensive simulations, we show that the proposed dynamic routing helps achieve the desired system performance under dynamically changing network conditions. The proposed algorithm is compared with one of the best existing routing algorithms, GRAB. Moreover, a modification in GRAB is proposed which not only improves its performance but also prolongs its lifetime.