A Deadline Aware Real-time Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) find application in real-time events reporting and data gathering. When the sensor detects an event it is reported to the base stations, which then takes appropriate action. The course of action should have finite and bound delays defining a hard real-time constraint for time critical applications. This work proposes a network layer based, deadline aware real time routing protocol, which assumes a collision free known delay MAC (Medium Access Control) layer. The protocol works in three phases-the initialization phase, path establishment phase and the bandwidth division phase. This protocol ensures bounded delay in transmission of sensed data to the sink. It establishes a single path from each sensor node to the sink and allocates bandwidth for that path thereby reducing the time required for the sensed data to reach the sink.