On The Performance Of Directed Diffusion In Dense Sensor Networks

Directed diffusion is a prominent example of data-centric routing in sensor networks, since it is based on application layer data and purely local interactions. However, its functioning relies heavily on expensive operations, like network-wide flooding, that may decrease the protocol performance in densely deployed networks. In this paper, we take a first step towards understanding the performance of directed diffusion in dense sensor networks. Our objective is to precisely identify the protocol's weaknesses in such application scenarios, in order to allow adequate optimizations for better performance.