A Novel Weighted Cooperative Routing Algorithm Based on Distributed Relay Selection

Typically wireless multi-hop ad hoc and sensor networks utilize protocols that relay packets hop-by-hop along a path connecting source node to sink node. The emerging cooperative routing (CR) methodology, however, can obtain distinct performance gain by selecting extra relay to forward data. This study presents a novel distributed weighted cooperative routing algorithm (DWCRA) which selects the "best" relay with the optimal weighted metric for cooperative transmission in a distributed manner. The weighted metric of relay selection strategy comprises of remaining energy of relays and channel state information (CSI) of each source-relay-sink pair. The simulation is implemented on NS-2 platform and results show that, compared to non-cooperative DSDV routing protocol, DWRCA achieves a delivery-lifetime tradeoff between maximal remaining energy algorithm (MREA) and optimal channel state algorithm (OCSA). In addition, different performance demand can be met by dynamic coordination of the weighted factors