A routing protocol for wireless sensor networks with load balancing

Directed diffusion is a well know routing algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) that was designed in 2003. Directed diffusion saves energy by sending data packets hop by hop and by enforcing paths to avoid flooding. The main disadvantage of directed diffusion is that it is not aware of the network and nodes status and as a result cannot compare potential paths to find the best or healthier path. As an effort to try to overcome this disadvantage, we propose a network-aware protocol. The proposed protocol collects data about the available paths and uses these data to enforce healthier paths using machine learning. The data collection is done by adding a new stage called data collection stage. In this stage, the protocol designer can determine which parameters to collect then use these parameters in enforcing the best path according to certain criteria. In our implementation of this paradigm, we are collecting total energy on the path, lowest energy level on the path, and hop count. Again, the data collected is designer and application specific. The collected data will be used to compare available paths using non-incremental learning, and the outcome will be preferring paths that meet the designer criteria. In our case, healthier and shorter paths are preferred, which will result in a balanced power consumption and longer network lifetime since healthier and fewer nodes will be doing the work.