Multipath routing protocol with load balancing in WSN considering interference

Abstract

In this paper we propose a multipath routing protocol that considers energy saving and wireless interference. We design the linking cost function that considers node remaining energy and number of hops to the destination node. Two paths are established between source and destination nodes, by using the path discovery process that finds the next hop node which minimize the linking cost. In the proposed routing protocol, interfering nodes of the discovered path are marked out and not to take part in subsequent routing. In this way the quality of wireless communication is improved because the effects of wireless interference can be reduced as much as possible. We design the load balancing algorithm that balances the network loads on the established paths. In this way data packets are distributed on many nodes and the node energy consumption is more balanced for entire wireless network. The proposed protocol is simulated in NS2 software. Simulation results are given that compare this protocol to that in the literature. The conclusion is that by using this protocol the total network energy consumption is lower and the network lifetime is longer.