Improving Network Quality of Service with Multipath Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Cognitive sensor networks (CSNs) are wireless sensor networks that utilize cognitive radio technology to provide adaptive responses to the environment and improve performance. However, CSNs face challenges such as dynamic spectrum circumstances, node mobility, and resource limitations. Multipath routing protocols have emerged as a potential solution to overcome these obstacles, improving the reliability and resiliency of communication between nodes. However, current multipath routing protocols have downsides such as increased overhead, inflexibility, and lack of reactivity to external conditions. There is a growing need for new multipath routing protocols specifically tailored for CSNs to solve these constraints. These protocols should decrease routing overhead, display flexibility, and consider environmental factors. They should be able to handle various traffic types, scale effectively, and improve security. This research proposes a Node Grade Factor (NGF)-centered node-disjoint multipath routing protocol, NGFMR, which aims to achieve energy-efficient node-disjoint route selection. This is made easier by introducing Quality of Service (QoS) measures into the path selection process, such as distance to SINK, availability of spectrum, communications cost, and node delay.  The proposed disjoint routing protocol improves equal allocation of network burden over various routes, resulting in improvements to QoS. Simulations show that NGFMR is superior to other protocols in terms of throughput of network, packet delivery ratio, consumption of energy, and end-to-end latency.