A Cross-Layer Routing Protocol for Balancing Energy Consumption in Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy efficiency and load balancing are known to be critical design concerns in routing protocols in wireless sensor networks. We can achieve the first concern by finding the minimum energy path, while the latter, can be achieved by using multiple sub-optimal paths. In this paper, and for this purpose, we propose a routing protocol that exploits interaction between the MAC layer and the network layer. Our proposal is a simple cross-layer routing protocol that enhances the wireless sensor network lifetime by balancing the energy consumption in the forwarding task. To do so, the MAC layer informs the network layer about all the overheard communications of the neighboring nodes. According to this information, and in order to balance the energy consumption of the forwarding nodes, a node chooses its next hop among the less-used ones. Hence, the choice of the next hop is, contrary to existing multi-path routing protocols, not probabilistic and leads to better energy consumption balancing. We have used a mathematical model and simulations to evaluate the performance of our proposal. The final results have shown that our cross-layer routing protocol uses all forwarding nodes in an equitable manner compared to other routing protocols. This enables to avoid the network partitioning and to enhance the network lifetime.