Title: Cross-layer routing and time synchronisation in wireless sensor networks

Authors: Szymon Fedor, Martin Collier, Cormac J. Sreenan

Addresses: Ericsson Ireland, Ericsson Software Campus, Athlone, Ireland. ' School of Electronic Engineering, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland. ' Department of Computer Science, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

Abstract: A common time reference across nodes is required in most Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) applications. Also many routing protocols require that nodes communicate according to some predefined schedule for reasons of energy efficiency. However, independent distribution of the time information, without considering the routing algorithm schedule or network topology, may lead to a failure of the synchronisation protocol. This can be avoided by integrating the synchronisation service into the network layer with a so-called cross-layer approach. We present two novel cross-layer routing algorithms, CLEAR and RISS. We implemented and tested the performance of these solutions in simulations and also deployed these routing techniques on sensor nodes using TinyOS. All proposed schemes extend the network lifetime and due to their lightweight architecture they are very efficient on WSN nodes with constrained resources. Hence, it is recommended that a cross-layer approach should be a feature of any routing algorithm for WSNs.

Keywords: wireless sensor networks; time synchronisation; cross-layer routing; wireless networks; WSN synchronisation; WSNs; simulation; network lifetime; routing algorithms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2011.042198

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2011 Vol.10 No.3, pp.143 - 159

Published online: 31 Aug 2011 *

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