Discovering High-Quality Paths with Load Balancing in Wireless Sensor Networks

摘要

This paper proposes a reliable routing protocol called LBR for wireless sensor networks, which find high-quality paths with considering load balance among nodes. The LBR protocol transmits messages through a reliable path to reduce the packet loss rate. To the problem of increasing data transmission reliability, our routing protocol uses ETX as a metric for estimating link quality. By using ETX, the LBR protocol can choose good links in the network. In addition to the above, the problem of load balance is also considered in our protocol. By taking this into account, the LBR protocol avoid routing through the congested nodes and balance load among nodes better. This results in increasing the lifetime of the network. The simulation results using the Qualnet simulator showed that the proposed protocol outperforms other protocols in terms of packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay and the efficiency of load balance.