Energy-Efficient Routing for Frequency-Hop Wireless Networks

The use of adaptive-transmission protocols in wireless, store-and-forward, packet communication networks may result in large differences in the energy requirements of the alternative paths that are available to the routing protocol. Routing metrics can provide quantitative measures of the quality and energy efficiency of the paths from the source to the destination. Such measures are required if the routing protocol is to take advantage of the potential energy savings that are made possible by an adaptive-transmission protocol. An energy-efficient protocol suite for routing and adaptive transmission in frequency-hop wireless networks is described and evaluated, several routing metrics are compared, and tradeoffs among energy efficiency, delay, and packet success probability are investigated.