2018 IEEE 32nd International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications

Energy consumption for opportunistic routing

algorithms in WSN

Hajer Ben Fradj , Rajoua Anane , and Ridha Bouallegue Member, IEEE,

Innovation of communication and cooperative mobiles, InnoV’COM Lab, University of Carthage,Tunisia

Laboratory of Acoustics at University of Maine, LAUM UMR CNRS n 6613, France
benfradj.hajer@gmail.com, Rajoua.anane@univ-lemans.fr, ridha.bouallegue@ieee.org

Abstract—Opportunistic routing (OR) is a new paradigm in

routing protocol for wireless sensor network (WSN). The OR
has aroused wide concern because it can improve the energy
consumption and reliability in wireless sensor networks (WSNs),
especially if the most sensor nodes are equipped with a limited no-
rechargeable battery power. In this context, performing optimal
routing strategy is a crucial task at the network layer of WSN.
In this paper, we focus on minimizing energy consumption
and enhance the network lifetime. Indeed, we proposed a new
opportunistic routing algorithm called ECS-OR (Energy Candi-
date Set-opportunistic Routing) that permit to balance energy
consumption and extend the lifespan of wireless sensor network.
Extensive simulations show that our proposed routing strategy
ECS-OR can significantly improve the network performance on
energy saving and wireless connectivity in comparison with other
existing WSN routing schemes.
Keywords—WSN, Energy Efficiency, Opportunistic Routing,
Performance analysis, EEOR, ROR, ECS-OR, ExOR.
I. I NTRODUCTION
he wireless sensor network is attracting more and more
T researchers in the field of Telecommunications. This
type of network is low cost, easy to deploy, very flexible and
multifunctional due to advances in micro-electromechanical
technology and the progresses in circuit design [1]. The WSN
can be defined as a collection of battery powered wireless
sensor nodes, which can sense events in the environment and
share the data gathered from sensing node to a central node.
Their position in the network is not necessarily predetermined
because they can be randomly dispersed in a geographical
area (with an algorithm and a self-organization protocol) or
their positions can be specified and organized in a targeted
area [2]. Figure 1 shows that a sensor array is connected by
a point to a host system. This connection point is called sink.
All the data collected by each node is routed to the well or
collection point via a multi-hop architecture or only a jump
according to the network topology. Sensor nodes use wireless
technologies to access the entire network, and there are
several categories of these wireless technologies. A wireless
network, not limited to wireless sensor networks, is a network
based on electromagnetic wave communication (radio, ultra
sound, etc.). Thus, the terminals can move in a more or less
extended geographical perimeter, while remaining connected.
Several wireless communication technologies have been
developed. One technology differs from others in terms of the
emission frequency used, the transmission rate and the range
of transmissions [3].
In this article, our contribution focuses on the realization of
Fig. 1: Wireless sensor network architecture
an opportunistic routing algorithm called ECS-OR, whose
objective is to deal with the problem of energy consumption
in order to maximize the lifetime of the network.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: The
next section introduces briefly the notion of network lifetime
and the main problems of WSN. Section III describes the
energy recovery in opportunistic routing protocol. Section IV
offers details of our opportunistic routing algorithm ECS-OR.
Finally, simulation results are discussed In Section V, followed
by the conclusion in Section VI.
II. T HE LIFETIME OF A SENSORS NETWORK
Because of their small size, sensors generally have limited,
non-replaceable energy resources. This is the reason why
energy is often the most valuable criterion of a network of
sensors because it directly affects the lifetime of the sensors,
and therefore of the whole network. The research work in the
WSNs is thus oriented towards this important problem. The
lifetime of a sensor network is generally defined by the time
the network is capable of maintaining enough connectivity,
covering the catchment area, or keeping its node loss rate
below a certain level. There may be other definitions of the
network lifetime associated with other network parameters.
The lifetime of a sensor network is thus linked to the duration
of life of the nodes. And the lifetime of a node depends mainly
on the lifetime of its battery. The latter depends on the energies
consumed by the various modules that make up the node, the
battery technology and how to use it. Several definitions of the
lifetime of a network of wireless sensors have been proposed
in the literature. Among the possible definitions:
• The duration until the first node exhausts all its energy
[4].

1550-445X/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 259

DOI 10.1109/AINA.2018.00048
 • The duration until all the sensor nodes exhaust their
energy [5].
• Duration until 50% of the nodes deplete their batteries
and stop working [6].
• The duration until the network is partitioned: the first
division of the network into two or more [7].
Therefore, the maximization of the lifetime of the network can
be achieved by the different energy conservation techniques
existing. The first technique aims to reduce radio activity to
avoid overconsumption. This can be implemented by setting up
a scheduling of the communication time by a wake-up / awake
mechanism by a TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access), etc.
The second technique is oriented towards the use of routing
protocols in order to route the amount of data exchanged in
the WSNs. In addition, the use of mobility can be considered
to reduce system consumption [8]. Several factors influence
the design of sensor networks such as fault tolerance, network
topology, radio link, energy consumption, mobility or material
constraints [3]. Let’s try to know better these factors:
• Fault Tolerance: In special cases, the sensor node can
fail, which can be caused by a lack of energy, by in-
terference with the viewing environment or when new
sensor nodes are added to the network. In particular,
the network must continue to operate normally and
without interruption [1].
• Topology and connectivity: The topology of WSN can
be changed in progress for some reasons:for example,
the mobility of the nodes, the failure of the probes
or the expiration of the energy of the sensors. Under
these conditions, the topology must imperatively be
adapted to these factors in order to maintain network
operation [3].
• Radio link: The support for the WSN must be effi-
cient in transmission, robust against interference and
less expensive. The wireless media used for sensor
networks is ”Zig Bee”. This standard is simple to use,
minimizes power consumption and provides through-
put of up to 250 Kbps [6]. These features make its
use for WSNs convenient and profitable.
• Energy Consumption: Energy consumption is consid-
ered a fundamental element in the context of avail-
ability in the WSN. This parameter poses a problem
of conservation especially if the application must
work for a long time. In fact, for sensor networks,
it is impossible to recharge or replace batteries after
depletion [8].
• Mobility of the nodes: The mobility of the nodes
in the RCSF represents the origin of the topological
variations. This parameter actually depends on the
transmission power from one node to another, and
subsequently the energy consumed during the commu-
nication and the lifetime of the network. It is essential
to define this criterion during the election phase of
dominant languages where lower mobility is generally
preferred.
• Hardware constraints: The size of the sensor is the
most important hardware constraint. In the medical
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field, it is essential to deploy small sensors to avoid
annoying patients. Several contributions have been
introduced to optimize the size of sensors such as the
integration of miniature antennas [7].
So, Wireless sensors are independent elements, as the name
implies. Therefore, they must also have a power supply au-
tonomous. Their lifetime is limited by the lifetime of their
battery. This strong constraint has a major influence on all the
techniques put in place for the deployment of such networks.
A major effect of this energy limitation is the maximum
limitation of very expensive radio transmissions. It is therefore
essential to carry out as much as possible the treatment of the
information locally at the node. The challenge is to extend the
life of the system and its robustness, in case of fall of some
nodes only. The problems are thus far removed from those
of classical networks, such as the maximization of through-
put.This energy and consumed by the various functionalities
of networks which are therefore in decreasing order of energy
consumption [8].
Radio (Communication),Protocols (MAC, routing), CPU (cal-
culation, aggregation), end Acquisition. This work aims to
guarantee distributed energy consumption in the network based
on routing protocols.
III. E NERGY R ECOVERY IN O PPORTUNISTIC ROUTING
P ROTOCOLS
Through the research work related to the sensor networks,
various problems have been raised. The maximization of the
lifetime of a sensor network has gained particular attention.
We mention that our work is closely based on the following
works: [9] formulated the problem of lifetime maximization
under the assumption of aggregation of data. The positions
of the sensors and that of the base station are known in
advance. A polynomial algorithm has been proposed to solve
the problem under consideration. The latter is linear. [10]
Treated the routing problem through the shortest path by
considering sensors with capacities to adapt their transmission
powers. The work of maximizing the most important lifetime
is that presented in [11]. The authors proposed a framework
that takes into account the constraints of the network layer,
MAC and physical. The framework adapts well to orthogonal
or non-orthogonal transmissions and has been evaluated for
different topologies. Performance in terms of service life is
remarkable. [12] formulated the problem of lifetime maximiza-
tion in the case of opportunistic routing and random linear
coding. The idea is to receive the information according to a
certain probability in order to balance the energy consump-
tion between the sensor nodes. The proposed model is not
convex and only takes into account the constraints of the
network layer (energy constraints, conservation of the flow and
the calculated capacity in the case of opportunistic routing).
Extremely Opportunistic Routing (ExOR) is a protocol for
opportunistic routing created in 2004 at MIT by Biswas and. al.
EXOR depends on the Mac layer and thus ensures routing and
the scheduling of transmissions to avoid collision problems.
ExOR assumes that all network ETX (the ETX ’expected
number of transmissions’ used to deliver a message is inversely
proportional to the error rate.) pairs are known to each node.
On the basis of this information, when a source wishes to

transmit data to a destination, it first constructs the forwarder
list, the list of relays that can participate in the relaying of
the frames. For each relay in this list, a cost is associated
denoting the average number of transmissions required to go
to the destination through this relay. Proportionally at this
cost, the source specifies a timer for each relay designating
when transmission will be possible. The list of relays and their
timers are placed in the headers of each frame sent by the
source. In this way, each relay waits its turn before starting its
retransmissions leaving priority to the best relays [13]. This
type of protocol does not make it possible to take the energy
of the nodes.
On the other hand, this protocol suffers from the problem
of replication of packets: several potential relayers relay
the packet, this induces an unnecessary energy consumption.
EEOR ’Energy Efficient Opportunistic Routing’ is an oppor-
tunistic routing protocol whose purpose is to minimize the
energy consumption of nodes within the network, but it does
not take into account the residual energy balance and the end-
to-end packet delay. [14] Is a routing protocol that uses a
list of candidates selected according to a set of criteria.The
source presents the list of candidates selected by sending it in
a multiple way the information.This type of protocol presents
a new type of calculation and choice of best candidates which
is as follows: S is the list of S, increasingly sorted, based on
the expected cost of each source node to send data to the given
target node. With Fwd (u) designate the list of source nodes
chosen. To find the expected cost of node u, we will first sort
the list of Fwd * (u) in ascending order using their cost.
F wd(u) = v1 , V2 , ..., v|F wd(u)| , i < j, Cvi < Cvj .
Let α denote the probability that a packet sent per node u is
not received by a node in the chosen list Fwd*(u).
|F wd∗(u)|
 nodes influences the total energy consumption and gives a
α= euvi . (1)
i=1
P is the probability that a packet sent per node is received by
at least one node in Fwd*(u) [14]. Then
P = 1 − α. (2)
Cu (F wd∗ ) = Cuh (F wd∗ ) + Cuf (F wd∗ ) + Cuc (F wd∗ ) (3)
With:
Cuh represents the energy consumed by the node u to send
a packet [14].
Cuh (F wd∗ ) = W/P (4)
Where W is the energy consumed and Cuf represents the total
cost under U to forward the packet to the destination using the
candidat set (CS) list [14].
Cuf (F wd∗ ) = β/P (5)
β is defined by:
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|F wd∗ | i−1
 
β = (1 − euv1 )Cv1 + ( euvj ).(1 − euvi )Cvi (6)
i=2 j=1
Where Cuc is the cost of communication to choose the
best path. Therefore we conclude that EEOR is a protocol
based on Fwd list which is a list includes minimum cost
nodes calculated by equation (3). In order to minimize energy
consumption and choose the best path to the destination.
What monks in this type of protocol is that at the level of
choice of the nodes and of calculation of costs, sometimes
one chooses nodes of low energy which allows a reputation
to the network. This patter is corrected by advancing EEOR
protocol to define a new routing protocol Opportunistic ROR
’Range-based Opportunistic Routing’.
ROR is the progress of EEOR protocol, it presents several
attribute for each links of two nodes. Each link is characterized
by a simple cost C, an error rate E, a distance by contribution
to the destination D, and the instantaneous energy of each
node. According to these attributes, this makes the choice
of the list Fwd which is also characterized by a maximum
number of nodes fixed at the beginning, with the aim of
minimizing the transmission number. The main objective of
the ROR protocol is to minimize energy consumption, which
makes it possible to increase the lifetime of the sensor network
and the amount of data transmitted and minimize the number
of control messages [3]. The fundamental idea of ROR is to
minimize the number forword list by selection only the nodes
closest to the destination and which at maximum energy. The
major disadvantage of opportunistic routing protocols is the
selection of several nodes to the forword list, so the solution
is to work to minimize this number in order to minimize the
number of possible transmissions. The minimization of the list
minimal lifetime, so, the solution is to present an algorithm
that minimizes the maximum number of candidates selected.
IV. O UR P ROPOSED P ROTOCOL ECS-OR
The main problems in wireless sensor networks are routing
protocol, energy consumed by the node, security, aggregation
of data, unpredictable mobility of nodes, and so on. These
sensors are sometimes deployed in hostile areas. It is therefore
necessary to have an efficient strategy that takes into consid-
eration the energy of the network to increase its lifetime by
reducing the loss of energy while being reactive to changes
in the environment. In this context, we propose a new routing
protocol called ”Energy Candidate Set-opportunistic Routing”
and denoted ECS-OR. The objectives of our ECS-OR protocol
are as follows:
• Minimize energy consumption.
• Increase the lifetime of the sensor network.
• Minimize the number of control messages.
• Minimize the number of transmission sent.
• Presents an effective solusion for a mobile network.
The fundamental idea of ECS-OR protocol is to minimize the
number of nodes to the list forword ie to select the best nodes
at energy level, error rate, distance to destination, and the cost
of sending . Our protocol is based on two phases. The first
phase allows the cost calculation in the same way as the ROR
protocol.
Candidate List Selection Algorithm
Input: target node, source node, list of neighborhoods
of node i N(i),
the Expected cost(d, c, e), power w.
Output: the candidat list of each node.
1/add a source node in CS list.
Repeat
2/Calculate the expected cost if
CS(u) = v1
C = w ∗ 1/(d + c − e) 
3/if The expected cost of C < cost of nodes
in C then add node.
The second phase consists in the selection of the list of
candidates, this process is detailed in the following algorithm.
Calculating cost algorithm
Input: the candidat list of each node,target node,
source node, the Expected cost(c, e, d), power w.
Output: the expected cost Cu(CS) from node
u to node t. Fig. 2: The fixed network topology of our algorithm
Repeat
1/Calculate the energy cost of each CS list
Cuh (CS ∗ ) = W/P
2/ Calculate the total cost under U to forward Table 2 presents the network parameters used throughout the
the packet to the destination using the F W D list. simulation.
Cuf (CS ∗ ) = β/P The variables Notation
3/ Calculate the communication cost reach an V number of neighboring nodes.
agreement on the choice of best path. U∗ is a node list ordered by cost.
Cuc until no node add a forwarder list. W is the energy consumed to send a
4/Orders the list CS according to energy. packet.
(Ni ) is the neighborhood liste of node i.
V. S IMULATION OF THE ECS-OR ROUTING ALGORITHM e(Ni , Nj ) is the probability that the packet
transmission under the link
In this section, we evaluate the performance of the ECS- (Ni , Nj ) is not efficient.
OR protocol by simulating under different network parameters, c represents the cost to send the
for example, power consumption, lifetime, duplicate packets, source packet to the list FRW.
packets loss rate using the network simulator NS2. We take d is the distance between the source
the topology of Figure 2 as an example representing a mobile and destination.
network with a 100-nodes random topology: N0 is the source Y is the probability that a received
and N100 is the destination. packet correctly.
C N ih is the energy calculated that nodes
First, we give an overview of the NS2 simulator that we used
Ni sending a packet to the destina-
and which was designed mainly for communication networks.
tion.
Then we show the results of our simulations which prove the
performance of this algorithm. The simulation parameters are C N if is the total cost expected by Ni to
summarized in Table 1. forward the packet to the destina-
tion using the list F W D(Ni ).
C N ic is the total cost of all F W D com-
Network Parameters Values munication nodes to reach agree-
Number of Nodes 100 to 700 ment on how the node selected for
Initial Node Energy 2 Joules packet transmission.
Tx Power 0.0762 EI Initial Energy of the Node(1j).
Idle Power 0.05 Ec Critical Energy Level of the
Sleep power 0.000048 Node().
Rx Power 0.0831 Er Residual Energy of the Node().
Routing Protocols ROR,EEOR,ExOR, ECS-OR NC Number of nodes in the list of
Propagation Model Two Ray Ground candidates.
Antenna Model Omni Antenna A network is represented by a graph G = (U, V), with U the

262
set of vertices (the nodes of the network), and V is the set
of links. We underline that our simulations were performed
on the ASUS machine under UBUNTU. More specifically, the
simulated detection nodes are equipped with an application
layer, opportunistic routing, random access to the medium and
a physical layer.
Fig. 3: Duplicated packets.
Figure 3 shows the total duplicate packets during the trans-
mission process. It is clear that the ECS-OR protocol offers
better performance than EEOR and ROR in the term of the
number of packets applied. It can also be deduced from these
curves that the ECS-OR protocol is more efficient at 15% than
the ROR protocol, in terms of the number of lost packets, and
more than 60% effective than the EEOR protocol.
Fig. 4: Energy consumption.
Figure 4 renders the total energy consumed according to
the number of sensor nodes. This graph reveals that our
routing strategy is more advantageous than its counterparts
in an energy point of view. This improvement is due to the
minimization of number of candidate set for each shipment.
Passing now to the network lifetime, it has been observed
from figure 5 that the ECS-OR protocol proposes a maximum
lifetime by supplying the ROR.
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Fig. 5: Lifetime.
VI. C HOICE OF FIXED NUMBER OF CANDIDATES
After choosing and calculating the list of candidates, there
are often several possible paths to reach a destination, and
therefore the use of several relays to advance the frame to the
destination gives a consumption of more energy. The solution
is to have selected a fixed number of relay nodes in case
the energy consumption is minimal. But the problem is how
many number of candidates to choose to send the packets
without loss, with a minimum of energy consumption and
minimum costs?. Therefore, to answer this question, several
simulation tests were presented with a variation of the number
of candidates chosen in order to have an ideal number of sub-
sets of candida. We chose a network of 100 nodes and with
a random topology. Choosing the final list of the candidate
set according to which has better energy, this choice is set
each time to minimize, the number of multiple transfers
per shipment, the energy consumption, and the rate of loss
of packets. Figure 6 illustrates the result of three cases of
simulations. In case ”a”, we take the number of candidates
equal to 2. In case ”b” we set the number of candidates at 4
and finally in case ”C” at 6.
Figure 7 illustrates the result of two simulation cases. In case
”a”, we take the impact of a number of candidates on energy
consumption. In case ”b” we present the impact of the number
of candidates to the lost packet.
VII. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, we focus on minimizing energy consumption
and maximizing network lifetime of wireless sensor network.
For this matter, we develop and implement a new routing
opportunistic strategy called ”ECS-OR”. Our new routing al-
gorithm permits to reduce significantly the energy consumption
for each sensor node. This technique allows the minimization
of number of nodes in the CS list for each source. Through
extensive simulations, we disclose that the gain achieved with
ECS-OR protocol is very promising to obtain optimal energy
network consumption and increase the lifetime of network.
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