A cooperative routing algorithm for lifetime maximization in wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we study the impact of cooperative routing for maximizing the network lifetime in sensor network applications. We assume nodes in the network are able to perform cooperative transmission to achieve transmit diversity. We propose a joint cooperative transmission and energy conserving routing algorithm to prolong the network lifetime. First, a lifetime maximization problem via cooperative nodes is considered and performance analysis for MPSK modulation is provided. With an objective to maximize the minimum device lifetime under a constraint on bit-error-rate performance, the optimization problem determines which nodes should cooperate and how much power should be allocated for cooperation. Since the formulated problem is NP hard, a distributed suboptimal algorithm is developed for multi-node scenarios. We demonstrate through simulation that the proposed solution achieves 2~10 times longer network lifetime compared to non-cooperative routing, when it is used with FA algorithms.