InRout – A QoS aware route selection algorithm for industrial wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks are a key enabling technology for industrial monitoring applications where the use of wireless infrastructure allows high adaptivity and low cost in terms of installation and retrofitting. To facilitate the move from the current wired designs to wireless designs, concerns regarding reliability must be satisfied. Current standardization efforts for industrial wireless systems lack specification on efficient routing protocols that mitigate reliability concerns. Consequently, this work presents the InRout route selection algorithm, where local information is shared among neighbouring nodes to enable efficient, distributed route selection while satisfying industrial application requirements and considering sensor node resource limitations. Route selection is described as a multi-armed bandit task and uses Q-learning techniques to obtain the best available solution with low overhead. A performance comparison with existing approaches demonstrates the benefits of the InRout algorithm, which satisfies typical quality of service requirements for industrial monitoring applications while considering sensor node resources. Simulation results show that InRout can provide gains ranging from 4% to 60% in the number of successfully delivered packets when compared to current approaches with much lower control overhead.