A rule-based adaptive routing protocol for continuous data dissemination in WSNs

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a subclass of ad hoc networks with severe resource constraints. These constraints preclude the use of traditional ad hoc protocols, and demand optimizations that incur in solutions specific to a class of applications. This work presents PROC, a protocol designed for continuous data dissemination networks that interacts with the application to establish routes. This mechanism allows the application to reconfigure PROC on runtime. PROC also provides fault-tolerance mechanisms to ensure reliable routes. A performance evaluation in topologies varying from 50 to 200 nodes showed that PROC increases network lifetime around 7% to 12%, and has a higher throughput than both energy-aware data-centric routing (EAD) and a simplified version of TinyOS Beaconing. Furthermore, PROC presents a graceful performance degradation when the number of nodes in the network increases.