TCNet: Trellis Coded Network — Implementation of QoS-aware routing protocols in WSNs

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are important infrastructures of the Internet of Things (IoT) architecture. Their huge potential to connect the real or physical world with the virtual world established new challenges of integration between “Infrastructure Networks” and “Wireless Domain” by means of protocols architectures compatible with the IP structure widely used in the Internet. WSNs are networks that may have a huge quantity of nodes where collaborative characteristics are exploited using ad hoc defined links. In addition, it is important to take into account that WSN nodes have few resources in terms of energy, processing power and memory. In this case, it is advantageous to employ self configurable architectures in which the competition to access channels and error control could be network distributed. Considering WSNs as an important structure for the IoT architecture, the interest in using sensor networks in the same universe as IP networks suggests the use of transit network configurations. This work proposes to implement the new concept of a “Trellis Coded Network”-(TCNet). This model uses Mealy machine-(MM) or low complexity Finite State Machine (FSM) network nodes (“XOR” gates and shift registers), eliminating the use of any routing tables by means of Trellis decoding. The sequence of states of the FSM thus corresponds to a network route to be traveled by a transmission frame. The route can be chosen based on criteria of Quality of Service (QoS)-aware routing protocols.