Information for routing in energy-constrained ad hoc networks

In wireless ad hoc networks consisting of battery-limited nodes, communication protocols must be energy-aware to prevent early network failure due to radios exhausting their energy supplies. Incorporating current estimates of battery levels into routing metrics has been shown to reduce the demand on radios with little remaining energy and allow them to participate in the network longer. In addition to knowledge of current battery levels, estimates of how quickly radios are consuming energy may also be helpful in extending network lifetime. We present a family of routing metrics that incorporate a radio’s rate of energy consumption. Simulation results show that the proposed family of metrics performs well under a variety of traffic models and network topologies.