A Group-Based Protocol for Large Wireless AD-HOC and Sensor Networks

Many routing protocols for ad-hoc networks and sensor networks have been designed, but none of them is based on groups. It is known that grouping nodes gives better performance to the group and to the whole system, thereby avoiding unnecessary message forwarding and additional overheads. We propose an approach where the network is split into several groups of sensors where connections between groups are established as a function of the proximity and the neighbor´s available capacity (based on the sensor´s energy). In this paper the network architecture is described with its mathematical description and the messages that are needed to proper operation. It is also simulated how much time is needed to propagate information between groups. A comparison with another group-based architectures is shown. The application areas for our proposal could be rural and agricultural environments in order to detect plagues or fires and to propagate it to neighboring areas, or for military purposes to propagate information between neighboring squads.