Effect of link-level feedback and retransmissions on the performance of cooperative networking

Cooperative Networking is a new technology which exploits the massive deployment of nodes in wireless sensor networks. Cooperative Networking synergistically integrates Networking with cluster-based Cooperative Communications to improve reliability and enhance network performance. In this paper, we consider the effect of link-level feedback and retransmissions on the performance of wireless sensor networks using Cooperative Networking, and we present scenarios where link-level retransmission offers a significant improvement in network throughput. Generally, Cooperative Networking with link-level retransmission provides higher throughput when the network node density is low (i.e., sparse networks) or in environments with adverse conditions such as high probability of transmission loss and low connectivity among the nodes.