QoS-Energy aware Broadcast for Sensor Networks

Abstract

We present QoS Geometric Broadcast Protocol (QoS-GBP), a novel broadcasting protocol for heterogeneous wireless ad hoc and sensor networks. While broadcasting is a very energy-expensive protocol, it is also widely used as a building block for a variety of other network layer protocols. Therefore, reducing the energy consumption by optimizing broadcasting is a major improvement in heterogenous sensor networking. QoS-GBP is a distributed algorithm where nodes make local decisions on whether to transmit based on a geometric approach. QoS-GBP enables a tradeoff among the need for neighborhood information (communication overhead) and the delay. QoS-GBP is scalable to the change in network size, node type, node density and topology. QoS-GBP accommodates seamlessly such network changes, including the presence of actors and mobile nodes in heterogeneous sensor networks. Through simulation evaluations, we show that QoS-GBP is very scalable and guarantees minimum delay.