Dynamic data prioritization for quality-of-service differentiation in heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

In many applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), heterogeneity is a common property in terms of different sensor types and different circumstances like node location, link quality, and local node density. In many applications, there are several different sensor types with entirely different Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements. The requirements may also vary over time according to the application scenario and also due to network dynamics. Different requirements appeal different approaches while forwarding sensed data through a multi-hop communication network. This paper proposes a dynamic priority assignment strategy to be used for data routing in heterogeneous WSNs aiming to fairly propagate information according to its importance and requirements. To cope with heterogeneity and dynamics, nodes in the routing path dynamically compute priorities for individual data items according to the attached QoS requirements. We apply the proposed strategy for a healthcare monitoring application scenario which consists of an ambient network and several mobile clusters of nodes in the form of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). The nodes have very different requirements and WBANs show a high mobility in the network with more stringent demands. The results show a large improvement in the achieved QoS for more demanding information.