Energy Efficient Thermal Aware Routing Algorithms for Embedded Biomedical Sensor Networks

One of the major applications of sensor networks in near future will be in the area of biomedical research. Implanted biosensor nodes are already being used for various medical applications. These in-vivo sensor networks collect different biometric data and communicate the data to the base station wirelessly. These sensor networks produce heat, as the nodes have to communicate among themselves wirelessly. The rise in temperature of the nodes due to communication should not be very high. A high temperature of the in-vivo nodes for a prolonged period might damage the surrounding tissues. In this paper, we propose a new routing algorithm that reduces the amount of heat produced in the network. In the simple form, the algorithm routes packets to the coolest neighbor without inducing routing loops. In the adaptive form, the algorithm uses mechanisms to adapt to topologies with low degree of connectivity and to switch to shortest path routing if a time threshold is exceeded. The proposed algorithm performs much better in terms of reducing the amount of heat produced, delay and power consumption compared to the shortest hop routing algorithm and a previously proposed thermal aware routing algorithm (TARA)