A cross-layer energy-balanced bidirectional minimum hop routing algorithm for WSNs

To reduce the redundant overhead and to conserve nodes´ energy in bidirectional minimum hop routing for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), we propose in this paper a cross-layer energy-balanced bidirectional minimum hop routing algorithm (CEBMHR). The proposed algorithm has three key functionalities: (1) establishes the downstream routing by means of source routing without using extra control packets, (2) disperses the information of nodes´ residual energy with little overhead based on cross-layer design, and (3) uses hop count and nodes´ residual energy as upstream and downstream routing criterion. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that our proposed algorithm can reduce the control overhead and nodes´ energy consumption, and extend the network lifetime.