Expected delay for topology construction and reconfiguration in harvested 802.15.4 networks

Multi-hop harvested wireless sensor networks (HWSN) face two challenges. First, each node must control its energy consumption through duty cycle adaptation to spend less energy than nodes obtain from the environment. Second, nodes must efficiently adapt topology so that packets use the most efficient paths towards the sink. In this paper, we address the challenges in the specific context of beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 networks that harvest energy from the light. We analyze and discuss the integration of duty cycle adaptation and topology reconfiguration algorithms in this kind of networks. We propose a novel scheme to identify the best route using the Expected Delay metric (ED). ED synthesizes several network path factors in a single monotonic value that may be used to choose the parent node in topology construction. We have evaluated the performance of the proposed scheme and compared it with the DEHAR routing protocol. Our simulations show the better performance of the proposed scheme.