Adaptive Multi-Criteria Routing for Shared Sensor-Actuator Networks

In this paper, we present Adaptive Multi-Criteria Routing (AMCR), a novel routing approach for large-scale shared Sensor-Actuator NETworks (SANETs). Although many routing protocols have been proposed for wireless sensor networks, most of these protocols are designed with a specific application class or load pattern in mind. Furthermore, disparate concerns are usually woven within these protocols for optimization purposes. This limits the ability of these protocols to efficiently handle all the routing needs of shared SANET environments that may have different applications with different communication requirements. A novelty of the AMCR design is that it provides a truly generic routing protocol capable of exploiting the message semantics and adapting itself to the observed application characteristics in order to support the efficient operation of shared SANET platforms. AMCR provides descriptive criteria-based addressing of resources, and allows applications to publish their own resource criteria. It also provides seamless support for unicast/multicast/anycast/broadcast communication patterns. AMCR supports multi-criteria indexes to efficiently route complex queries. AMCR exploits the application-specific message semantics in routing, by allowing applications to create routing indexes for the most frequently targeted criteria. We also propose a mechanism for automatic adaptation of AMCR criteria indexes according to observed traffic patterns. The scalability and efficiency of AMCR is shown using analytical evaluation.