Robust Multipath Links for Wireless Sensor Networks in Irrigation Applications

Wireless sensor networks for irrigation applications normally consist of low-cost and low-power nodes deployed in a harsh environment. It turns out that the radio links between the coordinating node and actuating nodes are more critical and are expected to be more robust to radio interference and node failure than links between the coordinating node and sensing nodes. We present an efficient method to create robust links for irrigation sensor networks built on the ZigBee specification. In particular, multipaths between the coordinating node and actuating nodes are created and used to enhance the critical links. It is shown that, by utilizing the properties of addresses of ZigBee networks, those multipaths can be dynamically created and released adapting to topology changes without any path search activities. Simulation results confirm the robustness of the proposed multipath links.