Travel Time and Energy in Wireless Networks with Duplicate Packets

We show that the average travel time, and the energy consumption, in a wireless network can be significantly reduced by using multiple independently routed packets. Multiple coupled Brownian motions are used to model the travel of each packet including the effect of packet loss, time-outs for "old" packets that are dropped, and possible multiple packet retransmissions. An explicit formula is thus obtained for the total average effective travel time and for the average energy consumption per packet.