A Virtual Coordinate-Based Bypassing Void Routing for Wireless Sensor Networks

To solve the routing void problem in geographic routing, high control overhead and transmission delay are usually taken in wireless sensor networks. Inspired by the structure composed of edge nodes around which there is no routing void, an efficient bypassing void routing protocol based on virtual coordinates is proposed in this paper. The basic idea of the protocol is to transform a random structure composed of void edges into a regular one by mapping edge nodes coordinates to a virtual circle. By utilizing the virtual circle, the greedy forwarding can be prevented from failing, so that there is no routing void in forwarding process from source to destination and control overhead can be reduced. Furthermore, the virtual circle is beneficial to reduce average length of routing paths and decrease transmission delay. Simulations show the proposed protocol has higher delivery ratio, shorter path length, less control packet overhead, and energy consumption.