Link quality aware route selection in heterogeneous wireless sensor networks

This paper considers the problem of optimal route selection in heterogeneous wireless sensor networks. The link quality aware route selection strategy is proposed by integrating realistic communication model depicting the underlying dynamics of wireless links. We focus on scenarios where the desired signal between two sensor nodes experiences Rician fading channel and the interfering signals experience Rayleigh fading channel. The Rician/Rayleigh fading environments considers both extreme cases of channel with dominant Line of Sight (LOS) and No LOS (NLOS) at all. Link quality is portrayed by reception probability i.e. probability of successfully received packets over a communication link. Reception probability of Rician/Rayleigh fading channel is utilized as a metric for link quality aware route selection and performance is compared with conventional route selection metrics based on simplified communication models. The simulation results demonstrate that incorporation of link quality in route selection process provides routes with optimal end-to-end throughput.