Ant-based routing and QoS-effective data collection for mobile wireless sensor network

Abstract

Mobility management in mobile wireless sensor networks (MWSNs) is a complex problem that must be taken into account. In MWSN, nodes move in and out of the network randomly. Hence, a path formed between two distant nodes is highly susceptible to changes due to unpredictable node movement. Also, due to the limited resources in WSN, the paths used for data transmission must be tested for the link quality and time consumed for data forwarding. In order to solve these issues, in this paper, an ant-based routing protocol with QoS-effective data collection mechanism is proposed. In this protocol, the link quality and link delay are estimated for each pair of nodes. Link quality is estimated in terms of packet reception rate, received signal strength indicator, and link quality index. A reliable path is chosen from the source to the destination based on the paths traversed by forward ants and backward ants. Then, if the link is found to be defective during data transmission, a link reinforcement technique is used to deliver the data packet at the destination successfully. The mobile robots collect the information with high data utility. In addition, each mobile robot is equipped with multiple antennas, and space division multiple access technique is then applied for effective data collection from multiple mobile robots. Simulation results show that the proposed routing protocol provides reliability by reducing the packet drop and end-to-end delay when compared to the existing protocols.