Vector Field And Network Coding-Based Multipath Routing Protocol For Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks emerge rapidly with the developments of sensor technology, micro electrical mechanical system, wireless communication technology and modern network. A large number low-cost small sensor nodes, deployed in the monitoring region, consist of the wireless sensor networks. Consequently, these networks form a self-organizing network system through communication with each other. Efficient and reliable routing protocols are the basis of the normal operation for wireless sensor networks. As a basic technology of wireless sensor networks for applications, it is of great significance to study on routing protocols. Researching on multipath routing protocol has been a hot issue in the field of wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we introduce the development status of multi-path routing protocol, and also study the application of network coding and vector field in wireless sensor networks.Although using multi-path routing in wireless sensor networks improves the packets forward reliability and network robustness, it also brings a data redundancy problem, which will inevitably increase the energy consumption of the network; once the packet cannot be received in the sink node, packet retransmission will consume more network energy and increase the network delay. In this paper, those problems as network energy efficient and reliability are solved at routing protocol level. Methods mentioned in this paper are also suitable for application in high reliability wireless sensor networks.In general, the research contents and innovations mainly include five aspects as follows:(1) Both disjoint multipath routing and brain multipath routing model are established, and mathematical analysis and calculation are discribed. We choose successful delivery ratio and normalized redundancy as two metrics to evaluate their performances, and show the simulation results.(2) By introducing network coding into multipath routing model, we establish network coding-based disjoint multipath routing and brain multi-path routing models. Both the two models are analyzed and calculated. After using network coding, we can still recover, despite of part nodes or links being disabled, the original data at the sink node with large probability; this advantage will enhance the network’s fault tolerance and robustness. Simulation results show that the introduction of network coding in the multi-path routing model has greatly improved network’s performance.(3) On the basis of the two models:network coding-based disjoint routing model and brain routing model. We introduce a kind of vector field theory, based on fluid theory, for the entire network to establish the load vector field, making the routing discovery and establishment possible, so as to find an energy-effective vector routing for wireless sensor networks.(4) This paper proposes a vector field and network coding-based brain multi-path routing (VNC_BMR). The main idea is to reduce the average node energy consumption, improve the load balance, prolong the network lifetime by using vecto filed and network coding together. Detailed routing design includes the source node coding, routing discovery, intermediate coding, sink node decoding.(5) We establish simulation circumstance and configure simulation parameters in OMNeT++platform. Both vector field and network coding-based disjoint multipath routing (VNC_DMR) and VNC_BMR are studied in experiments. Whether it is in single source and single sink scene or multiple sources and single sink scene, simulation results show that the multi-path routing protocol based on network coding and vector field has good performance on network delivering, redundancy, load balancing and survival time.In this paper, simulation results agree with theory analysis, confirming the correctness of theoretical calculation and analysis. It also verify the superiority of the vector field and multipath routing protocol based on network coding in this paper. Finally, it maks a beneficial exploration for researching multipath routing protocol in wireless sensor networks.