Energy and throughput efficiency in wireless multihop networks

In wireless multihop networks, route selection plays an important role in network performance in terms of throughput capacity, as well as, energy efficiency. In general, the route selection strategy should distribute the traffic throughout the network, in order to avoid congestion. This strategy also has the side-effect of distributing the energy consumption among all nodes, so that the energy starvation of highly used nodes is avoided. However, the optimal route selection strategy is not always the same with respect to throughput and energy efficiency. In this paper we evaluate several route selection strategies in terms of average message transmission durations and network connectivity lifetime. The simulation results show which strategy is more beneficial for each objective, and how a combination of strategies may lead to balanced results.