Energy Efficient Hierarchical Multi-Path Routing Protocol to Alleviate Congestion in WSN

Abstract

Congestion easily occurs in wireless sensor networks (WSN) due to it's centralized traffic pattern. In order to achieve high energy efficiency, network longevity, better fairness and quality of service, it is important to detect congestion in WSN in a timely manner. In this paper, an energy efficient hierarchical multi-path routing protocol to alleviate congestion and to balance energy is proposed. The algorithm is designed by partitioning the network into equal sized zones to achieve complete network connectivity and to reduce packet transmissions. The zone leaders selected are shifted on different nodes based on network dynamic conditions to avoid hotspots and to provide energy balancing. For an efficient data transmission, quicker and optimal multiple paths are established using merged zone and hierarchical network topology structure. The proposed algorithm detects the congestion by monitoring the path quality. The detected congestion is a result of overloaded links or nodes on the path. In addition, the algorithm proactively controls the congestion by dynamically shifting the transmission paths on their quality and alleviate it reactively using traffic splitting approach. The goal of this approach is to control resources instead of controlling the network load. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs better as compared to other congestion control algorithms in terms of throughput, energy consumption and packet delivery ratio in a resource constraint wireless sensor network.