REAR:

Reliable Energy Aware Routing for Wireless Sensor Networks

Protocol

Kee-Young

*Department of Computer Software and Engineering, Korea University of Science and Technology (UST), Daejeon, South Korea +Ubiquitous Computing Middleware Research Team, Embedded Software Research Division, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Daejeon, South Korea {sky64398, jun361, john2004, msyu, pmah}@etri.re.kr
Abstract - In wireless sensor networks, micro sensor nodes dispersed in real environmental field have a constraint energy capacity, so energy-efficient mechanism for wireless communication on each sensor node is so crucial. Specially, the jobs sending and processing sensing data information from on sensor node to the others are more majority parts than merely sensing some events. Thus, energy-efficient routing protocol in wireless sensor networks is necessary for increasing the network lifetime and is also influenced by many challenging factors in terms of energy, processing, and storage capacities. In this paper, we designed and implemented a Reliable Energy Aware Routing (REAR) protocol for wireless sensor networks and evaluated the performance of REAR by comparing with existing routing protocols. REAR considers residual energy capacity of each sensor node in establishing routing paths and supports multi-path routing protocol for reliable data transmission. Furthermore, REAR allows each sensor node to confirm success of data transmission to other sensor nodes by supporting the DATA-ACK oriented packet transmission. Finally, the performance evaluation results show that REAR provides energy-efficiency and reliability related to wireless communication in wireless sensor networks.

Shin*+, Junkeun Song*+, JinWon Kim+, Misun Yu+, and Pyeong Soo Mah*+

Keywords - wireless sensor networks, routing protocol, energy-efficiency, reliability, multi-path

1. Introduction
In recent years, the availability of cheap and tiny micro-sensors and low power wireless communication enabled the large scaled deployment of sensor nodes in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). WSN allows us to detect, monitor, and eventually control a wide aspect of real-world problems. For instances, there are such applications as follows: monitoring health condition of elder living at their home [1][2], tagging small animals like birds for monitoring, tracking threatened species across large remote habitats [3], and estimating pollution level in the open river and ocean, et al. As shown below in Figure 1, A basic and elementary requirement of WSN is data fusion, aggregation [4][5][6], and refinement. As it were, aggregating and refining raw data infornation sensed from multiple sensors is so crucial. As an example, in battle field [7], vehicles like the enemy's jeeps passing through a sensor network area can be detected by sensor nodes pre-set at the moments. A gateway/router sensor

node having data fusion function collects the raw data information from the sensor nodes and rearranges the sensed information for estimating the jeep's speed, direction and location. And then the gateway/router sensor node sends the obtained data results to the sink node. Due to technological advances in wireless communications and electronics, WSN consists of low-cost and small sensors are gradually developed and applied to various applications. WSN provides ubiquitous services useful for human life after perceiving environment characteristics such as temperature, humidity, sound, image, chemical elements. WSN includes various technologies for sensing, data processing, and communication. Of those technologies, wireless ad-hoc networking capabilities are necessary in order to gather efficiently much information from real environment. In particular, routing protocols have an important role in wireless sensor networks [8][9][10]. Because micro sensor nodes dispersed in real environmental field have a constraint energy capacity, energy-efficient mechanism for wireless communication on each sensor node is so crucial. Specially, the jobs sending and processing sensing data information from on sensor node to the others are more majority parts than merely sensing some events. Thus, energy-efficient routing protocol in wireless sensor networks is necessary for increasing the network lifetime and is also influenced by many challenging factors in terms of energy, processing, and storage capacities. In this paper, we designed and implemented a Reliable Energy Aware Routing (REAR) protocol on the real sensor network platform, Nano-Qplus platform [11], for WSN. We also evaluated performance of REAR by comparing with existing routing protocols related to energy consumption according to elapsed time. REAR establishes routing paths with considering residual energy capacity of each sensor node and supports multi-path routing protocol for reliable data transmission in WSN. In addition, REAR allows each sensor node to confirm the success of data transmission to destination sensor node by providing the DATA-ACK oriented packet transmission. The reminder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the features of routing protocol in WSN. In Section 3, we study previous routing protocols of WSN and REAR's characteristics are more specifically discussed in section 4 and 5. Furthermore, section 6 includes contents of performance evaluation of REAR and, in section 7, we conclude this paper

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and introduces future works of REAR. Finally, in section 8, we additionally introduce a real sensor network platform, Nano-Qplus platform [11].
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When some packet are sent from source node to sink node in REAR, sink node send ACK packet to source node for notifying that it successfully receive packets from source node. In addition, when current used routing path is faulted by drying up energy capacity of some nodes on that routing path, RAR can offer flexible topology reconstruction by using the secondary alternative routing path. Those characteristics of REAR efficiently support reliability in WSN

3. Analysis of Routing Protocol Mechanisms

In WSN, routing protocols are often studied that use multiple paths rather than a single path in order to enhance network performance. The reasons for classical multi-path routing are: * Load balancing - traffic between a source-destination pair can be distributed across multiple (partially or completely) disjoint paths * Reliable data delivery - the possibility of reliable delivery can be increased through transmitting data across multiple paths Subsequently, we compared existing mechanisms for routing in wireless sensor network in section 3.1 and section 3.2.

Figure 1. The architecutre of WSN

2. Routing Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

The communication between two sensor nodes in WSN are generally restricted due to battery size, memory size by node size, processing capability, communication distance between sensor nodes. Therefore, the communication between sensor nodes requires considering of maximizing energy efficiency, improving the reliability of packet transmission, maintaining minimized routing information, and reducing the complexity of algorithms besides basic functions of routing.

3.1 The Comparisons between Disjoint Multi-path Routing (D-MPR) and Meshed Multi-path Routing (M-MPR)
Multi-path routing protocols are largely divided into disjoint multi-path routing (D-MPR) and meshed multi-path routing (M-MPR). Table 1 represented the mechanisms comparison in the aspects of load balancing, throughput, and reliability

2.1 Routing Protocol Considering Energy-Efficiency

Although many previous routing protocols in WSN have been implemented with traditional wireless Mobile Ad-hoc NETwork (MANET) mechanisms, they are not well suited to the unique features and application requirements of WSN. To illustrate this point, we need to know the differences between WSN and MANET. In MANET, some users mainly design and implement the M\ANET network protocols with considering connectionless mechanism between mobile nodes, when mobile nodes move. However, in WSN, some users and programmers design and implement WSN network protocol for increasing network life time of each sensor node. Thus, for reflecting those features, REAR calculates a cost function ofresidual energy capacity on each sensor node when selecting the routing paths. Furthernore, by supporting multi-path routing, REAR can change from current used first routing path to alternative second routing path, when sensor nodes' energy capacity on current routing path is degraded under the some threshold value. These mechanisms offer uniforn energy consumption in WSN and guarantee fast topology reconstruction by using backup route when the first routing path is faulted.

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3.2 The Comparison between Packet Replication and Selective Forwarding

Table 2 represented the strength and weakness of data transmission mechanisms applicable to WSN [13][14].
Table 2. The comparison according to multi-path types Weakness | Strength -bad load balancing |-high throughput -high reliability -high energy consumption -good load balancing -low throughput

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2.2 Routing Protocol Considering Reliability

-low energy consumption -low reliability load -high throughput compared -bad balancing with SRF compared with SRF -low throughput -good load balancing --low energy consumption -low reliability -good load balancing -low throughput compared with SPF compared with SPF

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4. REAR System Architecture

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Processing Thread

Fig. 2 shows the overall system architecture of REAR. The architecture of REAR is composed of three threads: transmission thread, receiver thread, and processing thread. Transmission thread sends some data information sensed by sensor nodes in real field. Receiver thread takes some routing messages sent by source sensor node and delivered from M\AC layer. Furthermore, processing thread processes some data information saved in the queue. REAR also supports event-driven mechanism by processing some events related to sending and receiving of routing message information in EWSN. In next, we look into the each part of REAR more specifically.

* Receiver Event Handler - If events occur at the M\AC layer, Receiver Event Handler stores it on task queue for Receiver Event Handler to process the events according to the message's type. * Queue Manager - the data structure of task queue is circular queue, and all events are processed via task queue. If there are events to be processed, they are pushed into task queue. Then, a processing module processes them. The Queue Manager performs works such as pushing data into queue and popping data from queue. * Routing Manager - this module processes messages of task queue using routing table and REAR checker. This is composed of routing table manager, message processor, forwarding module, relaying module, and broadcast handler broadcasting messages to nodes. * REAR Checker - Compared with AODV, REAR depends on delay time by each node's energy value. To do this, REAR is composed of an Energy Estimator and a Delay Estimator. The Energy Estimator evaluates node's energy level, and the * Delay Estimator - determines delay value by inherent laziness representing overall sensor network energy status. Due to this approach, nodes having high energy value can be selected in terms of energy efficiency during establishing a routing path from source node to destination node.

5. The Detailed Features and Processions of REAR

5.1 The Detailed Feature and Processions of REAR
REAR considers current energy levels of sensor nodes when it establishes routing paths from sources to destinations. The process of REAR is like this. As show Figure 3, a source node broadcasts a multi-path route request message (MREQ) in order to find a routing path for a destination node. Then next nodes having received the MREQ message continuously forward it after checking their own energy value. When next nodes forward the MREQ message, they forward it after waiting for forwarding delay time according to their energy level. Therefore, nodes having more energy forward MREQ packet more quickly than nodes having less energy. Due to this approach, nodes having high energy value can be selected in terms of energy efficiency during establishing a routing path from source node to destination node. Therefore, REAR can extend wireless sensor network's lifetime by acquiring two energy efficient routing paths. In addition, if first path's energy level falls below threshold value, first path is replaced with second path. This results in extending lifetime through equalizing nodes' energy usage.

4.1 The Detailed Module Descriptions of REAR

REAR takes a feature of event-driven mechanism that processes some events related to sending and receiving routing message or some data information. First of all, if some events are generated, queue manage push the event data into task queue. Receiver event handler receive some events and data information from MAC layer and routing manager decides a data receiving node in the network area by referencing routing table and REAR checker, and then broadcast or unicast some routing message into the network.

Sender - this module performs the function transferring sensing data to sink node. The Sender provides APIs for data transmission to application layer. * Receiver - this is a module implementing APIs provided to application layer, which is performed on sink node. If the data from source node are received, the Receiver puts them into interface buffer and it sends ACK to source node.

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5.2 Robust Network Topology on REAR

REAR supports a multi-path routing by establishing two disjoint routing paths. In addition, REAR guarantees the disjointness between first route and second route for satisfying robust network topology. If a node receives the same MREQ message packet when it establishes routes, it discards the same MREQ message packet without forwarding it to next nodes. In Figure 4, due to nodes' fault or energy exhaustion, sensor network topology is changeable. Since it replace missing path with backup path in case of missing path, the robustness of network topology are satisfied by quickly reconstructing network topology. In addition, REAR enables the distribution of energy consumption over overall nodes.

In order to achieve reliable data transmission, REAR uses the mechanism sending ACK in response of transmitted sensing data. A sensor node waiting for ACK after transmitting the data sets ACK timeout after transmitting sensing data, and wait for the ACK. If the sensor node receives the ACK within the ACK timeout, it transmits new sensing data. If the sensor node doesn't receive the ACK within the ACK timeout, it considers it as transmission error. In this case, it retransmits the data. In addition, if data transmission to next hop fails due to node's fault or energy exhaustion, the node sends an error message packet to source node. Then source node receiving the error message resends it with using second path. Therefore, the reliability of data transmission is guaranteed.

6. Performance Evaluation of REAR

We implemented our routing protocol on the Nano-Qplus platform [ 1]. The Nano-Qplus platform consists of operating

5.3 Reliable Data Transmission Features on REAR

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system for WSN and sensor hardware. In order to evaluate the performance of REAR, we implemented REAR and Ad Hoc On Demand Multi-path Distance Vector (AOMDV) [18] protocol in real hardware platform, Nano-X explained in section 8, for WSN. We placed 20 sensor nodes on a predefined square geographical coverage area with dimension 25x30 meters in a uniformly random fashion. A source sensor node continually sends a sensing data packet with constant bit rate with 250kbps to a destination sensor node. We evaluated the number of living nodes energy variance according elapsed time (minutes).
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secondary backup routing path mechanism when first used routing path is faulted and allows more having energy capacity sensor nodes to participate in routing path by laziness mechanism. Thus, we can notice that REAR can uniformly use overall energy capacity in network area.

7. Conclusion
We designed and implemented a sensor network routing protocol, Reliable Energy Aware Routing (REAR) protocol, on the Nano-Qplus platform [11]. Furthermore, the results of performance evaluation show that REAR supports multi-path routing for energy efficiency and resilient data transmission. Thus, our REAR is applied and used in real sensor network environment efficiently.

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8. Appendix - Nano-Qplus Platform

Our so-called Nano-X in Nano-Qplus platform sensor node focuses on low-cost, low-power, and high-modularity. The structure of the sensor nodes will be described in detail hereinafter referring to Figure 7. The Nano-X is composed of four blocks: Main, Base, Sensor, and Actuator. The Main block has ATmegal28 [15] Microcontroller and CC2420 [16] IEEE802.15.4 [17][19] Compliant RF transceiver. The Base block is used for Anchor node with RS-232 Serial ITF, Parallel I/0 and external power source. For sensing physical environments, the Sensor block has several sensor entities, such as light, humidity, temperature, and ultra sound. The Actuator block is made up several electrical switches (relays) and can combine with electric appliances in order to turn Off/On power.

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Figure 5. The niumber of living nodes according to the elapsed time

Fig. 5 shows th at the number of living sensor nodes of REAR is much higher t]han that of AOMDV according to elapsed time (minutes). Beca-use REAR considers residual energy capacity in selecting routing path, sensor nodes ported with REAR are more living with longer time. Furthermore, when current used routing path is faulted, REAR can alternate secondary backup routing path flexibly, so REAR increases network overall lifetime in efficient.
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Figure 6. The Total Energy Variance according to the elapsed time

Fig. 6 shows that energy variance of REAR is gradually increased than that of AOMDV according to elapsed time (minutes). The reasons of result are why REAR supports the

Automatic configuration with module selection: As shown in Figure 9, the fine-grained modular architecture of our Nano-Qplus allows for an application designer to select from a variety of system modules in order to meet

application specific goals.

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* Dynamic Reconfiguration: We provide a secure dynamic reconfiguration mechanism to meet fault-tolerance and real-time adaptation. Dynamic reconfiguration is required for changing system parameters at runtime and then replacing components at runtime for fixing bugs, updating functionality, or adaptation to changes in the environment. Now, we are developing the simple, lightweight, and script-based mobile-agent for dynamic reconfiguration. The mobile-agent reconfigures the system parameters of Nano-Qplus. Also, we are using secure protocols. Reconfigure commands are signed and transmitted via secure connections, using encryption. * Dynamic Routing: In a sensor network system, failure of network nodes is regarded as a regular phenomenon due to the large number of nodes with limited energy and due to the mobile nature of the nodes. So, we will develop the router in order to dynamically adapt to the change of the network topology.

[6]

[7] [8]

[9]

[10]
[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]
[16]
[17] [18] [19]

Distributed Event-Based Systems, (DEBS '02), Vienna, Austria, July 2002. Boulis, S. Ganeriwal, and M.B. Srivastava. "Aggregation in Sensor Networks: An Energy-Accuracy Trade-off'. Sensor Network Protocols andApplications (SNPA '03). Proceedings ofthe First IEEE. 2003 IEEE International Workshop on, 11 May 2003. S. Alberts, J. J. Garska, and F. P. Stein. (1999) Network Centric Warfare: Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority [Online] Available:h Al-Karaki, J.N. and Kamal, A.E., "Routing Techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey", IEEE Wireless Communications, December 2004, pp.6-28. Ganesan, D., Govindan, R., Shenker, S., and Estrin, D., "Highly-Resilient, Energy-Efficient Multipath Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks", ACM SIG-MOBILE Mobile Computing and Communication, vol. 5, Issue 4, October 2001. De, S., Qiao, C., and Wu, H., "Meshed Multipath Routing: An Efficient Strategy in Sensor Networks", Proceedings on IEEE WCNC, vol. 3, March 2003, pp.1912-1917. Y. S. Shin, et al., "A Design and Implementation of a Multi-hop Wireless Sensor Network based on Nano-Qplus Platform," In the 20th International Technical Conference on Circuits/Systems, Computers and Communication (ITC-CSCC 2005), July, 2005. Ganesan, D., Govindan, R., Shenker, S., and Estrin, D., "Highly-Resilient, Energy-Efficient Multipath Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks", ACM SIG-MOBILE Mobile Computing and Communication, vol. 5, Issue 4, October 2001. De, S., Qiao, C., and Wu, H., "Meshed Multipath Routing: An Efficient Strategy in Sensor Networks", Proceedings on IEEE WCNC, vol. 3, March 2003, pp.1912-1917. De, S. and Oiao, C., "On Throughput and Load Balancing of Multipath Routing in Wireless Networks", Proceedings on IEEE WCNC, vol. 3, March 2004, pp.1551-1556. AVR 8bit RISC processor, CC2420 Radio Chipcon Datasheet, htt llwwchincrl omfilesCC220Data Sheet 1 3 d Jose A. Gutierrez et al, "IEEE 802.15.4: A Developing Standard for Low-Power Low-Cost Wireless Personal Area networks", IEEE Network, 2001 M. Marina and S. Das, "On-demand Multipath Distance Vector Routing in Ad Hoc Networks," in Proc. of IEEE ICNP, Riverside, USA, Nov. 2001. IEEE 802.15, "Draft Standard for Part 15.4:Wireless Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) specifications for Low Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks (LR-WPANs)" January. 2005.

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