A cross-layer congestion control strategy in wireless sensor network

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the energy and function of sensor nodes are limited. Congestion occurs frequently in many to one and multi-hop transferring nodes. It can cause packets dropout, low energy efficiency, and long delay. The network congestion control is a key to improve the QoS of network. Most studies were carried out at the transport layer in congestion detection and rate adjustment mechanism, without considering the balanced combination in the multi-path routing and the variety application situations. In this paper, we present a Cross-layer Congestion Control (CLCC) Strategy in wireless sensor networks. It includes multi-path routing, rate adjustment, and application-oriented design. The multi-path routing can remove congestion of one node immediately by forwarding packets to other nodes. The rate adjustment can control congestion fundamentally. The application-oriented design is for the variety situations in wireless senor networks. Simulation results are also presented that show decrease in drop rate and stability in source rate.