The energy-robustness tradeoff for routing in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks consisting of large numbers of inexpensive energy-constrained nodes are an area of emerging networking research. Routing algorithms in these networks are required to provide tolerance to temporary or lasting faults in individual devices. The conventional methodology is to set radio transmit powers to the minimum levels required for connectivity and use multipath routing to provide robustness. We show in this paper through an analytical example and detailed simulation results that using a single path routing scheme with higher transmit power can also be an energy-efficient solution for robustness to node failures.