Recent advances in wireless sensor networks have led to many new protocols specifically designed for sensor networks where energy awareness is an essential consideration. Most of the attention, however, has been given to the routing protocols since they might differ depending on the application and network architecture. This paper surveys recent routing protocols for sensor networks and presents a classification for the various approaches pursued. The three main categories explored in this paper are data-centric, hierarchical and location-based. Each routing protocol is described and discussed under the appropriate category. Moreover, protocols using contemporary methodologies such as network flow and QoS modeling are also discussed. The paper concludes with open research issues. 1.

All too often a seemingly insurmountable divide between theory and practice can be witnessed. In this paper we try to contribute to narrowing this gap in the field of ad-hoc routing. In particular we consider two aspects: We propose a new geometric routing algorithm which is outstandingly e#cient on practical average-case networks, however is also in theory asymptotically worst-case optimal. On the other hand we are able to drop the formerly necessary assumption that the distance between network nodes may not fall below a constant value, an assumption that cannot be maintained for practical networks. Abandoning this assumption we identify from a theoretical point of view two fundamentamentally di#erent classes of cost metrics for routing in ad-hoc networks.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of small nodes with sensing, computation, and wireless communications capabilities. Many routing, power management, and data dissemination protocols have been specifically designed for WSNs where energy awareness is an essential design issue. The focus, however, has been given to the routing protocols which might differ depending on the application and network architecture. In this paper, we present a survey of the state-of-the-art routing techniques in WSNs. We first outline the design challenges for routing protocols in WSNs followed by a comprehensive survey of different routing techniques. Overall, the routing techniques are classified into three categories based on the underlying network structure: flat, hierarchical, and location-based routing. Furthermore, these protocols can be classified into multipath-based, query-based, negotiation-based, QoS-based, and coherent-based depending on the protocol operation. We study the design tradeoffs between energy and communication overhead savings in every routing paradigm. We also highlight the advantages and performance issues of each routing technique. The paper concludes with possible future research areas. 1

Future sensor networks will be composed of a large number of densely deployed sensors/actuators. A key feature of such networks is that their nodes are untethered and unattended. Consequently, energy efficiency is an important design consideration for these networks. Motivated by the fact that sensor network queries may often be geographical, we design and evaluate an energy efficient routing algorithm that propagates a query to the appropriate geographical region, without flooding. The proposed Geographic and Energy Aware Routing (GEAR) algorithm uses energy aware neighbor selection to route a packet towards the target region and Recursive Geographic Forwarding or Restricted Flooding algorithm to disseminate the packet inside the destination region. We evaluate the GEAR protocol using simulation. We find that, especially for non-uniform traffic distribution, GEAR exhibits noticeably longer network lifetime than non-energyaware geographic routing algorithms. 1

Security is important for many sensor network applications. A particularly harmful attack against sensor and ad hoc networks is known as the Sybil attack [6], where a node illegitimately claims multiple identities. This paper systematically analyzes the threat posed by the Sybil attack to wireless sensor networks. We demonstrate that the attack can be exceedingly detrimental to many important functions of the sensor network such as routing, resource allocation, misbehavior detection, etc. We establish a classification of di#erent types of the Sybil attack, which enables us to better understand the threats posed by each type, and better design countermeasures against each type. We then propose several novel techniques to defend against the Sybil attack, and analyze their e#ectiveness quantitatively.

In this paper we present GOAFR, a new geometric ad-hoc routing algorithm combining greedy and face routing. We evaluate this algorithm by both rigorous analysis and comprehensive simulation. GOAFR is the first ad-hoc algorithm to be both asymptotically optimal and average-case e#cient. For our simulations we identify a network density range critical for any routing algorithm. We study a dozen of routing algorithms and show that GOAFR outperforms other prominent algorithms, such as GPSR or AFR.

In this paper, we study a novel forwarding technique based on geographical location of the nodes involved and random selection of the relaying node via contention among receivers. We provide a detailed description of a MAC scheme based on these concepts and on collision avoidance and report on its energy and latency performance. A simplified analysis is given first, some relevant trade offs are highlighted, and parameter optimization is pursued. Further, a semi-Markov model is developed which provides a more accurate performance evaluation. Simulation results supporting the validity of our analytical approach are also provided.

Abstract—We propose a new routing graph, the restricted Delaunay graph (RDG), for mobile ad hoc networks. Combined with a node clustering algorithm, the RDG can be used as an underlying graph for geographic routing protocols. This graph has the following attractive properties: 1) it is planar; 2) between any two graph nodes there exists a path whose length, whether measured in terms of topological or Euclidean distance, is only a constant times the minimum length possible; and 3) the graph can be maintained efficiently in a distributed manner when the nodes move around. Furthermore, each node only needs constant time to make routing decisions. We show by simulation that the RDG outperforms previously proposed routing graphs in the context of the Greedy perimeter stateless routing (GPSR) protocol. Finally, we investigate theoretical bounds on the quality of paths discovered using GPSR. Index Terms—Geographical routing, spanners, wireless ad hoc networks. I.

This paper describes Extremely Opportunistic Routing (ExOR), a new unicast routing technique for multi-hop wireless networks. ExOR forwards each packet through a sequence of nodes, deferring the choice of each node in the sequence until after the previous node has transmitted the packet on its radio. ExOR then determines which node, of all the nodes that successfully received that transmission, is the node closest to the destination. That closest node transmits the packet. The result is that each hop moves the packet farther (on average) than the hops of the best possible predetermined route.

In this paper, we investigate the impact of radio irregularity on the communication performance in wireless sensor networks. Radio irregularity is a common phenomenon which arises from multiple factors, such as variance in RF sending power and different path losses depending on the direction of propagation. From our experiments, we discover that the variance in received signal strength is largely random; however, it exhibits a continuous change with incremental changes in direction. With empirical data obtained from the MICA2 platform, we establish a radio model for simulation, called the Radio Irregularity Model (RIM). This model is the first to bridge the discrepancy between spherical radio models used by simulators and the physical reality of radio signals. With this model, we are able to analyze the impact of radio irregularity on some of the well-known MAC and routing protocols. Our results show that radio irregularity has a significant impact on routing protocols, but a relatively small impact on MAC protocols. Finally, we propose six solutions to deal with radio irregularity. We evaluate two of them in detail. The results obtained from both the simulation and a running testbed demonstrate that our solutions greatly improve communication performance in the presence of radio irregularity.