A probabilistic approach for predictive congestion control in wireless sensor networks

Any node in a wireless sensor network is a resource constrained device in terms of memory, bandwidth, and energy, which leads to a large number of packet drops, low throughput, and significant waste of energy due to retransmission. This paper presents a new approach for predicting congestion using a probabilistic method and controlling congestion using new rate control methods. The probabilistic approach used for prediction of the occurrence of congestion in a node is developed using data traffic and buffer occupancy. The rate control method uses a back-off selection scheme and also rate allocation schemes, namely rate regulation (RRG) and split protocol (SP), to improve throughput and reduce packet drop. A back-off interval selection scheme is introduced in combination with rate reduction (RR) and RRG. The back-off interval selection scheme considers channel state and collision-free transmission to prevent congestion. Simulations were conducted and the results were compared with those of decentralized predictive congestion control (DPCC) and adaptive duty-cycle based congestion control (ADCC). The results showed that the proposed method reduces congestion and improves performance.