Learning automata based energy efficient and reliable data delivery routing mechanism in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) emerged as major data gathering paradigm due to its wide variety of applications. Achieving energy efficient reliable data delivery is an important concern in WSNs. In a network, packet loss reduces the reliable data transmission rate. Retransmissions are required to increase the reliable data transmission rate. However, number of retransmissions also increase the network energy consumptions and packet delivery delay. Packet loss rate can be reduced by selecting a best successor node in a routing path. In this work, a Learning Automata based Routing mechanism is proposed for wireless sensor networks to achieve energy efficiency and reliable data delivery. In this paper, learning automata has been adopted to calculate next node’s selection probability in a routing path using node’s score, quality of link and previous selection probability. Further, an energy efficient reliable routing mechanism is proposed using combination of learning automata and A-star search algorithm. The proposed mechanism determines energy efficient and reliable routing paths in WSNs by favoring highest residual energy, good quality of link , more free buffer space and less distance. Finally, simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm reduces the energy consumptions, data delivery delay, data transmissions and increases the network lifetime.