Design of routing protocol for multi-sink based wireless sensor networks

An efficient routing protocol for a wireless sensor network (WSN) with multiple sinks is proposed. Sensor nodes containing three-sector antennas are deployed randomly in a monitoring area. All sensors discover and record their neighbors' locations, including those of the sink(s), with minimal control overhead. In routing, sensor nodes forward their data to a sink either directly by at most two hops or through a number of intermediate nodes, using their alternative sectors. The sensor nodes that are one or two hops away from a sink may follow the first route, and a major portion of the remaining sensors follow the second route. Each sensor in this case forwards the sensed data to a neighbor through one of the sectors, and the data are further forwarded by alternative sectors of the successive nodes until reaching a sink. An analysis for the proposed routing is provided, focusing on the second routing mechanism, where the success of data reaching a sink with different sector orientations of the sensor nodes is shown. An in-depth analysis of the proposed WSN and simulation using OMNeT++ are performed, and satisfactory results are found.