Delay-based reliable data transmission for lossy wireless sensor networks

Existing routing schemes assume an ideal environment where any form of transmission always succeeds. However, in realistic wireless sensor networks environments, where wireless links are extremely unstable, this causes numerous retransmissions. Much research has recently focused on routing schemes that guarantee energy-efficient and reliable data transmission. In circumstances without standard routing schemes in wireless sensor networks, however, it is neither practical nor efficient to propose a new routing scheme. To guarantee reliable data transmission in general way, in this paper, we propose Delay-based Reliable Data Transmission (DRDT), a modular approach that offers expansion to existing routing schemes. DRDT offers reliability in transmission through cooperative retransmission by a helper node that overheard the data packet, when the data reception of a receiver node fails due to an unstable link. The helper node is dynamically selected based on the distributed method that uses a delay when the neighbor nodes of the receiver node overhearing the data packet. DRDT reduces the number of retransmissions by considering the link quality with the receiver node. Simulation shows that DRDT improves delivery cost by up to approximately 45% compared to existing schemes.