TCP support for sensor networks

Communication between sensors and controlling entities at the edge or outside the sensor network is needed for reliable remote sensor node management and reprogramming. TCP would be useful for tasks, where reliable unicast is appropriate, but the high bit error rates in wireless sensor networks lead to energy inefficiencies reducing the sensor network lifetime. We introduce an approach to support energy-efficient TCP operation in sensor networks. The concept called TCP support for sensor nodes (TSS) allows intermediate sensor nodes to cache TCP data segments and to perform local retransmissions in case of errors. TSS does not forward a cached segment until it knows that the previous segment has been successfully received by the next hop. This forms a backpressure mechanism for congestion control. Simulations show that TSS significantly reduces the number of TCP data segment and acknowledgement transmissions