A fuzzy decision scheme for relay selection in cooperative wireless sensor network

Abstract

SummaryIn energy‐constrained military wireless sensor networks, minimizing the bit error rate (BER) with little compromise on network lifetime is one of the most challenging issues. This paper presents a new relay selection based on fuzzy logic (RSFL) scheme which provides balance between these parameters. The proposed scheme considers node's residual energy and path loss of the relay‐destination link as the input parameters for the selection of the relay node. The relay node selection by fuzzy logic is based on prioritizing higher residual energy and minimum path loss. To evaluate the performance on wireless sensor network, we compare the proposed scheme with the three existing relay selection strategies, ie, random, maximum residual energy based relay selection (MaxRes), and minimum energy consumption based relay selection (MinEnCon). The simulation results of the proposed scheme in terms of network lifetime, BER, Network Survivability Index (NSI), and average energy of network nodes have been presented and compared with different relay selection schemes. The simulation results show that the proposed RSFL scheme has the lowest BER, moderate network lifetime, average energy, and NSI.