A self-stabilizing directed diffusion protocol for sensor networks

We design a self-stabilizing communication protocol in a sensor network, based on the directed diffusion method [1]. A request for data from an initiator node is broadcast in the network, and the positive answers from the sensors are forwarded back to the initiator (following a Shortest-Path- Tree (SPT) construction rooted at the initiator.) The sensor nodes, starting from an arbitrary state and following our protocol, establish reliable communication in the network in a finite number of steps. Any number of initiators and any number of different requests at a time per initiator are allowed, but we limit the number of entries in the interest cache as the memory of a sensor node is limited.