An Opportunistic Routing Algorithm with Implicit ARQ for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

This paper presents a new multi-hop routing algorithm for wireless sensor networks. Each sensor node makes a local decision to forward or drop a packet, via a forwarding probability, either static or dynamic. This probability can be associated with local information such as residual energy of the node, packet properties, in order to optimize network performance. The direction of forwarding is guided by received signal strength indication (RSSI) relative to the sink node. Moreover, based on the characteristic of wireless communication that all packets are broadcast at the radio level, an implicit ARQ mechanism, where a receiver does not send an ACK frame explicitly to the sender, is adopted in our method. RSSI guided direction, probability based forwarding and implicit ARQ are three key points of this algorithm. The proposed algorithm reaches a good compromise between the successful delivery rate and work nodes. At last, computer simulations illustrate its effectiveness.