Cross-layer Multipath Routing Research Articles

Cross-layer multipath approach for critical traffic in duty-cycled wireless sensor networks

Ensuring that an active path is provided at all times in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is fundamental for securing the timely delivery of critical data and maintaining the quality of service required to effectively support delay-sensitive applications. In duty cycling mode, ensuring such a path becomes a real challenge as the activity scheduling of different nodes should be regulated and adjusted to provide a pipe-lined node activity from source to sink. Furthermore, some transmission delays may be incurred in waiting for a next-hop node to be awakened. The data transfer time is mainly influenced by the performance of both MAC and routing protocols; an inter-layer design allowing efficient coordination between the MAC and routing is then necessary to make the appropriate decisions relating to the selection of the next hop and the adjustment of the duty cycle. In this article, we provide a cross-layer multi-path routing approach designed to support the transfer of critical data over duty-cycled WSN networks. This approach establishes multi-node disjoint paths with complementary duty-cycling schedules to ensure the availability of an active path capable of transmitting critical data at all times. It relies on a tight cooperation between the routing and MAC layers in order to appropriately adjust and regulate the wake-up schedules of involved nodes in the forwarding phase. We analytically proved the correctness of the proposed scheduling adjustment rules. We conducted extensive simulations to show the ability of the CL-NDRECT to provide a viable trade-off between energy conservation and real time responsiveness. Simulation results show that CL-NDRECT provides around 65% cumulative energy saving during route establishment and data transfer compared to the always-on multipath approach at the cost of around 10% increase in response time.

Cross-layer adaptive multipath routing for multimedia Wireless Sensor Networks under duty cycle mode

Multimedia transport over Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) has been a challenging task due to the limited available resources of such networks. The capability of Multipath routing to balance and distribute the load of a given flow on different disjoint non correlated paths is a viable solution to ensure the required high throughput. Moreover, operating the WSN under a duty-cycle mode reinforces the challenge as nodes become subject to frequent alternation between the active and inactive states in the quest to prolong the network life and minimize the energy consumption. In this context, we propose a cross-layer multi-path routing approach taking into account diverse contextual information in order to establish non-correlated and node-disjoint paths able to concurrently transport multimedia content from sources to the sink. The approach relies on a tight cooperation between the routing and MAC layers in order to appropriately adjust and regulate the wake-up scheduling of involved nodes in the forwarding phase. It incorporates a continuous observation of local contextual data to improve the routing process. Independently of the initial duty-cycle scheduling, the conducted mathematical analysis proves that our adjustment rules provide a maximal overlapping interval between the activity periods of the involved nodes. We compare our approach against the single path option and FMRP, a multipath routing protocol designed for always-on WSNs using non-correlated paths. Simulation results showed significant improvements in terms of latency and throughput. The proposed approach attains 27% energy conservation, and it enhances the delay and goodput by 50% over the single path option and up to 90% over the FMRP.

Energy Efficient Cross Layer Multipath Routing for Image Delivery in Wireless Sensor Networks

Owing to limited energy in wireless devices power saving is very critical to prolong the lifetime of the networks. In this regard, we designed a cross-layer optimization mechanism based on power control in which source node broadcasts a Route Request Packet (RREQ) containing information such as node id, image size, end to end bit error rate (BER) and residual battery energy to its neighbor nodes to initiate a multimedia session. Each intermediate node appends its remaining battery energy, link gain, node id and average noise power to the RREQ packet. Upon receiving the RREQ packets, the sink node finds node disjoint paths and calculates the optimal power vectors for each disjoint path using cross layer optimization algorithm. Sink based cross-layer maximal minimal residual energy (MMRE) algorithm finds the number of image packets that can be sent on each path and sends the Route Reply Packet (RREP) to the source on each disjoint path which contains the information such as optimal power vector, remaining battery energy vector and number of packets that can be sent on the path by the source. Simulation results indicate that considerable energy saving can be accomplished with the proposed cross layer power control algorithm

Cross-layer multipath routing scheme for wireless multimedia sensor network

Multimedia transmission in wireless multimedia sensor network requires restricted quality of services (QoS) conditions. Where the resource-constrained nature of wireless multimedia sensor network (WMSNs) adds more challenges. Such a situation demands a routing strategy that can ensure QoS transmission and exploit the resources efficiently. At present, the single-path routing techniques cannot guarantee the end to end QoS requirements of video transmission causing the video quality degradation. Besides, the traditional network layers stack is not suitable for dynamic wireless sensor network environment, where important information is required from nonadjacent layers to enhance the routing decision. This paper proposes the design of cross-layer multipath routing (CLMR) scheme in order to ensure QoS and minimize energy consumption. CLMR is designed to determine the suitable multipath and to send the multimedia packets according to their importance. The cross-layer design between application, network and physical layers is adapted to obtain optimal routing decision. The simulation results show that the CLMR has a significant improvement in performance as compared to other similar existing protocols, where the obtained average delay with high delivery is less than 150 ms, while the energy consumption is reduced, and the PSNR values for the tested clips are more than 30 db.

Adaptive Cross-Layer Multipath Routing Protocol for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are generally created for temporary scenarios. In such scenarios, where nodes are in mobility, efficient routing is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose an adaptive and cross-layer multipath routing protocol for such changing scenarios. Our routing mechanisms operate keeping in view the type of applications. For simple applications, the proposed protocol is inspired from traditional on-demand routing protocols by searching shortest routes from source to destination using default parameters. In case of multimedia applications, the proposed mechanism considers such routes which are capable of providing more data rates having less packet loss ratio. For those applications which need security, the proposed mechanism searches such routes which are more secure in nature as compared to others. Cross-layer methodology is used in proposed routing scheme so as to exchange different parameters across the protocol stack for better decision-making at network layer. Our approach is efficient and fault tolerant in a variety of scenarios that we simulated and tested.

Scalable cross-layer multipath routing under interference constraints in wireless mesh networks

This paper investigates the problem of flow routing under interference constraints for wireless mesh networks. A new routing metric called cross-layer weight function CLWF, which is proved to be isotonic using virtual network decomposition, is initially developed by considering the traffic load and interference. Based on CLWF, a new routing algorithm called weighted hybrid multipath routing algorithm WHMRA is proposed in which the joint design of CLWF-based multipoint relay selection algorithm and fuzzy-slighted routing algorithm is introduced to improve the routing scalability. In addition, a cross-layer design framework is also developed in WHMRA in order to exchange information and enable interaction between layers where is enforced strict boundaries in original OSI networking model. Finally, through the system simulation and performance comparison, the proposed algorithms are demonstrated to succeed in improving network performance in terms of delay, packet loss ratio, throughput and overhead.

Cognitive cross-layer multipath probabilistic routing for cognitive networks

Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks (MANETs) is a set of mobile nodes that can move around arbitrarily, and communicate with others in a multi-hop fashion without any assistance of base stations. With recent advances in Cognitive Radio (CR) technology, it is possible to apply the Dynamic Spectrum Access model in MANETs. This introduces the concept of Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc Networks (CRAHNs). Applying CR techniques provides better throughput, even in congested spectrum along with better propagation characteristics. CRAHN is a kind of intelligent network that is aware of its surrounding environment, and adapts to the transmission or reception parameters to achieve efficient communication without interfering with primary users. Routing in CR environment is a challenging task as the availability of channel is constrained by the presence of primary user. The problem of routing in CRAHNs targets the creation and maintenance of wireless multi-hop paths among cognitive nodes by deciding both the spectrum to be used and the relay nodes of the path. This paper proposes a cognitive cross-layer multipath probabilistic routing for cognitive radio based networks. The proposed solution uses spectrum holes identified by MAC layer, decides the channel to be used and transmit power level for each hop in the path. The proposed solution is implemented in NS2, and performance of the proposed solution is compared with the existing solution from the literature. The paper also shows that the proposed solution outperforms existing solution in terms of packet delivery ratio, average end-to-end delay and energy consumed per data packet.

A game-theoretic multipath routing for video-streaming services over Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

The number of portable devices capable of maintaining wireless communications has increased considerably in the last decade. Such mobile nodes may form a spontaneous self-configured network connected by wireless links to constitute a Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET). As the number of mobile end users grows the demand of multimedia services, such as video-streaming, in such networks is envisioned to increase as well. One of the most appropriate video coding technique for MANETs is layered MPEG-2 VBR, which used with a proper multipath routing scheme improves the distribution of video streams. In this article we introduce a proposal called g-MMDSR (game theoretic-Multipath Multimedia Dynamic Source Routing), a cross-layer multipath routing protocol which includes a game theoretic approach to achieve a dynamic selection of the forwarding paths. The proposal seeks to improve the own benefits of the users whilst using the common scarce resources efficiently. It takes into account the importance of the video frames in the decoding process, which outperforms the quality of the received video. Our scheme has proved to enhance the performance of the framework and the experience of the end users. Simulations have been carried out to show the benefits of our proposal under different situations where high interfering traffic and mobility of the nodes are present.

Dynamic framework with adaptive contention window and multipath routing for video-streaming services over mobile ad hoc networks

The number of portable electronic devices capable of maintaining wireless communications increases day by day. Such mobile nodes may easily self-configure to form a Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) without the help of any established infrastructure. As the number of mobile devices grows, the demand of multimedia services such as video-streaming from these networks is foreseen to increase as well. This paper presents a proposal which seeks to improve the experience of the end users in such environment. The proposal is called dCW-MMDSR (dynamic Contention Window-Multipath Multimedia Dynamic Source Routing), a cross-layer multipath routing protocol which includes techniques to achieve a dynamic assignment of the Contention Window of the IEEE 802.11e MAC level. In addition, it includes multipath routing suitable for layered coded video to improve the performance of the service. The operation is simple and suitable for low capacity wireless devices. Simulations show the benefits under different scenarios.

Multimedia-Centric Routing for Multiple Description Video in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networks have emerged as a promising technology for providing ubiquitous access to mobile users, and quick and easy extension of local area networks into a wide area. The inherent low throughput problem makes multipath routing and load balancing increasingly important for supporting multimedia applications in such networks. We study the problem of cross-layer multipath routing for multiple-description video communications in wireless mesh networks. We aim to answer the following questions: how to formulate a multimedia-centric routing problem; what are the performance limits; how to design an efficient routing algorithm based on the formulated problem; and how to implement the algorithms in a distributed manner. Both simulation results and experiments from a testbed network are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach. We show that cross-layer design is imperative and effective in meeting the stringent quality of service requirements of multimedia applications in wireless mesh networks.