PWave: Flexible Potential-based Routing Framework for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Inspired by the potential theory in resistive electric networks, we present a routing framework called PWave that is fundamentally different from existing routing paradigms. PWave provides a systematic framework that guarantees proportional traffic allocation and supports global optimization of custom objectives. A fully distributed and highly scalable potential estimation algorithm and protocol were designed to ensure PWave to have low overhead and high resilience to network dynamics. Key properties of this framework are proved through theoretical analysis and verified through simulations.Using network lifetime maximization problem as one example, we illustrated the power of this framework by showing a 2.7 to 8 times lifetime extension over Directed Diffusion and up to 5 times lifetime extension over the exisitingenergy-aware multipath routing.