Comparison of QoS-aware single-path vs. multi-path routing protocols for image transmission in wireless multimedia sensor networks

Wireless multimedia sensor network (WMSN) applications require strong multimedia communication competence. Therefore, in WMSN applications, it is necessary to use specific mechanisms in order to handle multimedia communication challenges and address desired energy efficiency and reliability goals. Nevertheless, the existing communication protocols are not suitable for the communication challenges and the desired goals. In this respect, specific mechanisms for prioritization, link-quality estimation and multi-path selection can be employed by quality of service (QoS)-aware routing protocols to meet the reliability and delay requirements of WMSN applications.In this study a novel approach is proposed to set different reliability values for image packets for image transmission in WMSNs. Using this prioritization, important parts of an image are assigned high priority and take priority during data transmission. In order to evaluate the proposed approach, the performance of single-path and multi-path QoS-aware routing protocols has been investigated for WMSN-based image transmission applications. Specifically, comparative performance analysis of single-path routing and multi-path routing in image transmission have been conducted in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), average delay, reachability, and control overhead. As proven by the results of the performance evaluations in this study, multi-path routing is better than single-path routing in terms of reliability. On the other hand, at high traffic loads, multi-path routing may perform worse in terms of delay due to its associated overhead.