Load-balanced short-path routing in wireless networks

We study routing algorithms on wireless networks that use only short paths, for minimizing latency, and achieve good load balance, for balancing the energy use. We consider the special case when all the nodes are located in a narrow strip with width at most √3/2 ≈ 0.86 times the communication radius. We present algorithms that achieve good performance in terms of both measures simultaneously. In particular, the routing path is at most four times the shortest path length and the maximum load on any node is at most three times that of the most load-balanced algorithm without path-length constraint. In addition, our routing algorithms make routing decisions by only local information and, as a consequence, are more adaptive to topology changes due to dynamic node insertions/deletions or due to mobility.