An energy-balancing graph-routing algorithm for WirelessHART networks

Abstract

WirelessHART, an international standard of wireless industrial networks, adopted the concept of graph routing to meet the requirements of short latency and high reliability. However, WirelessHART networks also require longer network lifetimes when implemented for industrial applications. Designing a reasonable form of graph routing is one method to achieve a balanced consumption of network energy and, hence, a longer network lifetime. We propose a new energy-balancing graph-routing algorithm for WirelessHART networks based on the breadth-first search (BFS) algorithm, which divides nodes into layers. To increase the network lifetime, we define routing responsibility to estimate the data traffic at any given node and use graph shaping to transfer the traffic of high routing responsibility nodes to lower ones. Simulation results show that the proposed graph-routing algorithm extends the lifetime of WirelessHART networks, and helps guarantee end-to-end communication with minimal hopping.