Multi-path GEM for Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are expected to be used in many different applications such as disaster relief and environmental control. Efficient routing protocols need to be thoroughly studied before wireless sensor networks are widely deployed. GEM is an ingenious routing algorithm that is based on the idea of graph embedding. Using a well designed virtual coordinate system, GEM provides a remarkably simple route selection mechanism. However, GEM does not survive edge failures well. In this paper, we propose R-GEM and S-GEM that use the idea of GEM and improve its reliability performance significantly. Both of them outperform GEM in all of the experimental scenarios. Specifically, in the case that 2% of all edges in the network fail to transfer packets, when only disjoint pairs are taken into consideration, GEM leads to a path error rate of 10% while R-GEM and S-GEM only result in a path error rate of 2%.