A Reliable Multi-path Routing Approach for Medical Wireless Sensor Networks

With the research and application of wireless sensor networks are widely used in the medical field. It is put forward higher requirements for its reliability, flexibility and high efficiency. Changeable and unpredictable characteristics of the medical field environment are major factors that lead to the reliability decline in medical wireless sensor network. Finding a reliable path is an effective means of solving the network reliability. This paper analyzed the medical sensor network characteristics and requirements. Aiming to the special needs of the medical wireless network, a reliable multi-path routing protocol (RRMP) was proposed. The RRMP was based on links stability prediction by lists of neighbor´s nodes. And the reliable multi-path is realized by means of calculating path reliability factor and path delay factor. Simulation results show that the algorithm can obtain higher delivery ratio and lower end-to-end packet delays than the existing routing protocols.