Queue‐based congestion detection and multistage rate control in event‐driven wireless sensor networks

Abstract

ABSTRACTProtocols for sensor networks have traditionally been designed using the best effort delivery model. However, there are many specific applications that need reliable transmissions. In event‐driven wireless sensor networks, the occurrence of an event may generate a large amount of data in a very short time. Among them, some critical urgent information needs to be transmitted reliably in a timely manner. In this scenario, congestion is inevitable because of the constraints in available resources. How to control the congestion is very important for the reliable transmission of urgent information. To address this problem, we propose a queue‐based congestion detection and a multistage rate control mechanism. In our proposed mechanism, not only the current queue length but also the queue fluctuation are adopted as indications of congestion. Each sensor node evaluates its congestion level locally and determines its congestion state with a state machine. We design a multistage rate adjustment mechanism for nodes to adjust their rates depending on their congestion states. We also distinguish high‐priority critical traffic from low‐priority non‐critical traffic. Extensive simulation results confirm the superior performance of our proposed protocol with respect to throughput, loss probability, and delay.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.