Efficient Forwarding Protocol for Dual-Hop Relaying Wireless Networks

Abstract

This paper proposes a new relaying selection scheme that enhances the energy efficiency and packet delivery ratio for dual-hop wireless cooperative networks by using multiple forwarding protocols. In wireless networks, a relaying technique achieves spatial diversity gain to reduce errors and increase bit rates of systems; hence, it has become an attractive approach for multi-hop forwarding networks. In this study, relay nodes are able to forward messages from a source node by either the amplify-and-forward or the decode-and-forward protocol. By estimating the channel gain and residual energy of the relay nodes, a relaying selection algorithm is proposed in order to determine the best relay node for cooperation with the source node. As a result, relay nodes can maintain the balance of energy dissipation, extending network lifetime and reducing the packet error rate. Numerical evaluations show that the proposed scheme achieves energy efficiency and reliability for two-hop wireless sensor networks (WSNs).