A Cooperative Graph Approach for Cooperative Routing in Delay-Sensitive Systems

We investigate the cooperative routing problem in the single-source single-destination systems for the delay-sensitive case by using the proposed “Cooperative Graph” approach. The “Cooperative Graph” enumerates all possible cooperative routes in the problem. In a “Cooperative Graph”, a vertex represents a route. For each route, optimal scheduling is required under a total end-to-end duration constraint. As a result, the “Minimum Energy Cooperative Route”, which is the cooperative route with the minimum total energy consumption, can be obtained. “Maximum Hops Cut” with maximum number of hops to be K (K-MRC), which is a heuristic scheme to enumerate cooperative routes with no more than K hops, is suggested in the paper. Simulations indicate that the route obtained by using 4-MHC consumes energy that is close to the optimal value.