An Adaptive Algorithm for Fault Tolerant Re-Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

A substantial amount of research on routing in sensor networks has focused upon methods for constructing the best route, or routes, from data source to sink before sending the data. We propose an algorithm that works with this chosen route to increase the probability of data reaching the sink node in the presence of communication failures. This is done using an algorithm that watches radio activity to detect when faults occur and then takes actions at the point of failure to re-route the data through a different node without starting over on an alternative path from the source. We show that we are able to increase the percentage of data received at the source node without increasing the energy consumption of the network beyond a reasonable level