Localized Metrics Vs Broadcasting in Wireless Sensor Networks

Nodes in wireless sensor networks detect and deliver data that are of importance to related network applications. This data must first be reliably delivered to one or more hubs in the network before it can be consumed by the application. Routing protocols for wireless sensor networks therefore have to achieve this objective with minimal utilization of limited energy resources. These are typically conflicting objectives as achieving reliability typically involves some energy overheads and/or a degree of redundancy. In this paper, we investigate and compare a novel routing protocol that utilises local information instead of broadcasting to achieve higher reliability in data delivery without excessively compromising energy requirements.