Poster - SEA-OR: spectrum and energy aware opportunistic routing for self-powered wireless sensor networks

An appealing solution for unattended surveillance and monitoring applications is Self-powered Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). One of the main reasons is that the energy which is derived from power harvesting can significantly extend the network lifetime. Consequently, the network can work unattended for long periods. However, WSNs are characterized by multi-hop lossy links and resource constrained nodes while they have to face the coexistence problem with other applications. Opportunistic Routing (OR) is a routing paradigm to improve network performance in lossy wireless networks. At the same time, Cognitive Radio (CR) technology enables unlicensed operation in licensed bands. In this work, a combination of these two research approaches in a novel routing protocol is presented. A Spectrum and Energy Aware Opportunistic Routing (SEA-OR) protocol is proposed and designed for Self-powered WSNs. Moreover, a prioritization scheme which balances the packet advancement, the residual energy and the link reliability is introduced. Preliminary results show an improvement in network lifetime and delivery ratio. The performance of the introduced protocol is also evaluated in prototypes.