Cluster-based congestion control for supporting multiple classes of traffic in sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks, multiple flows from data collecting sensors to an aggregating sink could traverse paths that are largely interference coupled. These interference effects manifest themselves as congestion, and cause high packet loss and arbitrary packet delays. This is particularly problematic in event-based sensor networks where some flows are of greater importance than others and require fidelity in terms of higher packet delivery and timeliness. In this paper we present COMUT (congestion control for multi-class traffic), a distributed cluster-based mechanism for supporting multiple classes of traffic in sensor networks. COMUT is based on the self-organization of the network into clusters each of which autonomously and proactively monitors congestion within its localized scope. The clusters then exchange appropriate information to facilitate system wide rate control. Our simulation results demonstrate that our techniques are highly effective in dealing with multiple, randomly initiated flows.