Impacts of random forwarding on network performance of wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we analyze the impacts of random forwarding on network performance in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Specifically, network lifetime and packet delay are investigated for two alternative forwarding schemes: random forwarding and deterministic forwarding. In the random forwarding, a probabilistic function is used to select a next-hop from the set of candidate nodes, whereas the candidate node with the greatest value (or minimum cost if it is favored) in terms of routing metric is selected in the deterministic forwarding. In order to gain the insight into the nature of those forwarding schemes, we establish a Markov chain model for a simple two-hop network. Based on the analytic model, we obtain the network lifetime for two alternative schemes and identify the conditions in which one scheme outperforms the other. Moreover, the simulation results using ns2 validate that such conditions exist even in more realistic scenarios.