A Model Based Decision Making Scheme for Path Selection in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, a general decision making scheme for reliable path selection in wireless sensor networks (WSN) is proposed. In this approach, at first, the reliability of the underlying data transport protocol is modelled. Modelling is performed using reliability block diagram (RBD) formalism.Then, the parameters of the model are estimated for each path from a specific source to the sink, such that a desired level of reliability is achieved. The estimation process is formulated as an optimization problem and solved using constrained nonlinear optimization algorithms. The path whose estimated parameters best satisfy the WSN’s constraints, such as energy consumption, is selected for data transmission. The proposed method is independent of any specific protocol. Thus, it can be applied to a desired data transport protocol, since the decision is made based on the general reliability model of the protocol. Performance of the proposed method is evaluated for Reliable Multi-Segment Transport (RMST) protocol. Simulations show that the proposed method can enhance data transport performance in terms of network resource consumption significantly