A smart notification scheme for wireless sensor networks

The reliable transmission problem in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is quite different from that in traditional networks. Especially in event-driven wireless sensor networks, the most critical goal is to transmit the event alarm to users reliably and timely. For most current protocols, the raw event packets are periodically sent to the destination. However, the occurrence of the emergency event is hardly reported timely, which has been a stringent requirement for event monitoring applications. In this paper, the raw event packets are processed around the event area and only a few packets need to be transmitted to the destination quickly. To improve the reliability, a smart notification scheme proposed. Once a critical packet is facing the risk of path failure, it will clone itself and forward it to another next hop appropriately for reducing the loss probability. The parameter which indicates the clone capability is assigned depending on the wireless channel condition. Simulation results have shown that our scheme can enhance the performance in latency and energy consumption perspective.