Routing metric selection and design for multi-purpose WSN

The wide deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks along with the proliferation of applications that use WSN-generated data has led to the design of WSN architectures and systems that support multiple applications over the same WSN infrastructure. Different Quality of Service requirements imposed by different applications impose the use of appropriate routing metrics to decide the data path. Although this task seems straightforward, the theoretical framework of the routing algebra (established by Sobrinho et al.) proves that routing protocol convergence to optimal, loop-free paths necessitates for protocol-dependent routing properties satisfaction. This paper takes into consideration the routing algebra formalism, as well as the wide literature on routing metric definition to reach its goal which is to provide a routing metrics selection and composition framework. Based on this framework, prospective WSN system designers and users may choose the routing metric best-fitted to the needs of application(s) at hand and guarantees convergence, optimality, loop-freeness and efficiency for any type of routing protocol used in multi-hop wireless network deployment.