Power Aware Fault Tolerance in Wireless Networks with Heterogeneous Nodes

The increasing demand for wireless ad hoc networks in varied applications has led researchers to focus on extending the lifetime of these networks, especially in fault-prone situations. The need for graceful degradation in such a network becomes a necessity as it supports critical applications like military, aerospace etc. This paper describes algorithms that introduce fault tolerance in a network by adding new nodes called relay nodes in an optimized manner. The basic criteria used for optimization are residual energy and density of the network. A new approach of path selection has been defined that considers residual energy of the nodes along the intermediate paths while selecting the best path to route data. The techniques suggested in this paper have been evaluated using the NS-2 Simulator. The simulation studies carried out pertaining to the case studies show that the algorithm is very efficient in increasing network life time.