Priority-based receiver-side relay election in wireless ad hoc sensor networks

Abstract

Receiver-side relay election has been recently proposed as an alternative to transmitter-side relay selection in wireless ad hoc networks. In this paper we study different prioritization schemes among potential relay nodes to achieve a better delay and contention resolution performance. We consider a priority criteria based on least remaining distance to the destination and propose a generalized mapping function to introduce relative priority among the eligible relay nodes. We show that, a suitable mapping can be found to achieve an optimum relay election performance, which also outperforms the random forwarding approach. Our intuition is guided by an analytic framework and verified by network simulation.