R-RPT-A Reliable Routing Protocol for Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are extensively used to monitor and control physical environments. Effective energy management and maintaining reliability are key considerations in Wireless Sensor Networks and routing plays a crucial role in achieving these objectives. The Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is being adopted in Low-power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) to facilitate the connectivity of Wireless Sensor Networks within the Internet of Things (IoT). Although RPL has been significantly used in IoT routing, it still has extensive challenges. One of the most basic challenges is related to the reliability of routing. However, RPL lacks a load balancing mechanism, which is essential for maximizing the lifetime of sensor nodes by preventing the occurrence of overloaded nodes and the potential congestion that can result from it. To improve this issue, a new routing protocol was proposed called the reliable routing protocol (R-RPT) to maximize the reliability of data collection in large scale wireless sensor network. R-RPT aims to establish multiple bidirectional routes between a sensor node and a root node. R-RPT selects the parent node based on the evaluation of various criteria related to reliability. In addition, R-RPT achieves load balancing efficiently by sending data packets via the route with lighter workload. The simulation results obtained through Cooja simulator demonstrated that the proposed R-RPT routing protocol outperforms existing routing protocols in terms of packet delivery ratio, routing packet overhead and end-to-end packet delay.