Multipath on-demand routing in sensor network topologies

Abstract

The Multi-path On-demand Routing (MOR) Protocol is an on-demand, load balancing routing protocol designed for the Pods project at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa. Pods is a Remote Ecological Micro-Sensor Network where robustness and energy efficiency are high priorities. Pods sensors are wireless and often cannot communicate with a base station directly. MOR addresses these Pods needs through an on-demand routing mechanism using multiple paths where possible. MOR differs from other protocols in the use of a hop-by-hop reliability layer to optimize data delivery in low mobility environments. The reliability layer reroutes packets that fail to transmit (to the next hop) to a different path. Rerouting is possible since MOR utilize gradients for route direction, resulting in non-disjoint multipaths. MOR attempts to lower energy usage by minimizing the number of network floods necessary to establish routes. MOR was compared using simulation with DSR and AODV in reasonable dense and sparse sensor network topologies. MOR showed substantial improvements over DSR and AODV in terms of energy use and data delivery rate.