Energy Efficient Cross-Layer Routing Protocol in

Wireless Sensor Networks Based on Fuzzy Logic

Toleen Jaradat, Driss Benhaddou, Manikanden Balakrishnan*, Ala Al-Fuqaha**
Engineering Technology, University of Houston
*ECE Department, Mexico State University
**CEAS, CS Department, Western Michigan University
dbenhaddou@uh.edu

network lifetime. In recent research literature, several

approaches have been proposed to extend the lifetime of
WSNs, namely: power-aware protocols, low power hardware
designs, power-saving sleep mode, and transmission range
optimization [1, 2].

Abstract Resources are scarce in Wireless Sensor Networks

(WSN) and one of the challenges is to design a lightweight
communication protocol to support efficient and uniform power
consumption among nodes. In this paper, we propose an energy
aware routing scheme based on a cross-layer approach for WSNs
with the objective to minimize the overall consumed energy; thus,
maximizing the network lifetime. The remaining battery reserve
capacity, link quality and transmission power for nodes within
the local communication range are taken into consideration to
determine the next hop relay node to reach the network sink.
Parameters from different stack layers (i.e., physical, MAC, and
network) are presented to a fuzzy logic system controller which
makes a next hop routing decision. The performance of the
proposed cross-layer algorithm is evaluated using discrete event
simulation (OMNET++ Modeler).

Cross-layer design of network protocols is a promising

approach that can benefit WSN applications. Due to limited
resources, knowledge from different OSI layers can be used to
jointly optimize the overall performance of the network. The
main goal of this study is to develop a routing protocol based
on cross-layer approach to disseminate network state
information effectively with the intention of minimizing the
consumed energy; thus, maximizing the network lifetime. The
main idea is to have a routing protocol select the next hop
based on the energy level of the surrounding nodes. The next
hop will dynamically change based on the energy state of the
whole network. This work proposes a cross-layer routing
algorithm that uses the information from different layers to
help the routing protocol make a decision about the next hop.
Given that surrounding nodes energy will change over time,
the proposed algorithm uses a fuzzy logic based approach to
make a selection of the next hop. The surrounding nodes
energy changes depending on multiple factors and will have a
statistical significance from neighboring nodes perspective. To
avoid a frequent change of the routing decision, the algorithm
uses a fuzzy logic controller with multiple input parameters.
The efficacies of the proposed protocol are compared to Ad
Hoc on Demand Distance Vector routing (AODV) as the
algorithm was implemented on modified AODV protocol.
Testing and analysis is carried out using software-based
simulation techniques, i.e., discrete event simulation using
OMNET++.

Keywords-Wireless Sensor Networks, Energy Efficiency, Cross

Layer Design, Link Quality, Routing Protocol, Fuzzy logic system

I.

INTRODUCTION

With technological advances in microelectronics,

telecommunications and mobile computing fields, Wireless
Sensor Networks (WSNs) are becoming ubiquitous in different
applications (medical, smart building, smart grid, disaster
recovery, etc.). Even though WSNs are specific to the
application they are designed for, the fundamental goal of
typical WSN is to collect and aggregate meaningful
information from raw local sensor nodes (called motes) and
forward it towards a special type of nodes called sink to
produce useful aggregated data (e.g. temperature, humidity,
sound, vibration, pressure, motion, and power). Routing plays
an integral role in forwarding the information from source to
sink nodes. The resource constraints in terms of limited battery
power, low computational capacity, short wireless transmission
range and hostile environments create challenging
requirements that should be carefully addressed to make
optimal routing decisions.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: section

II presents a literature review of the energy-aware and crosslayer routing protocols proposed in the current research
literature. Section III provides detailed description of the
proposed energy efficient cross layer routing protocol.
Performance evaluation of the proposed protocol is presented
in section IV. Finally section V summarizes our conclusions
and discusses future research directions.

Using minimum hops as the metric for choosing a route in

WSNs might not always be the best choice as selection of the
next hop does not take in consideration energy. As a
consequence, the protocol will choose that hop until it is dead
and then select another one when the dead node fails. This
will create holes in the network and may cause a fragmented
network. The long network lifetime requirement of applications
demand for unique protocol design that aims to drain energy
uniformly among all nodes; thus, leading to increasing the

978-1-4673-2480-9/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

II.

LITTERATURE REVIEW

In general, communication between nodes in WSNs

consumes more energy than local sensing or processing
operations [5]. This fact leads communication protocol

177

toward the destination region. It follows the query-response

model. This routing protocol assumes that each node knows its
location, energy level, and its neighbors locations and energy
levels. Since GEAR is a location-based routing, each sensor
node requires localization hardware, such as Global Positioning
System (GPS). Each node has to keep an estimated cost and a
learning cost of reaching the destination through its neighbors.
The estimated cost is a combination of the residual energy and
the physical distance to the destination. The learned cost is a
refinement of the estimated cost that accounts for routing
around holes in the networks. A hole occurs when a node does
not have any closer neighbor to the target region than itself. If
there are no holes, the estimated cost equals the learned cost.
The learned cost is propagated one hop back every time a
packet reaches the destination so that route setup for the next
packet is adjusted.

designers to take a particular interest in energy efficient routing

in WSNs focusing on minimizing the total energy consumption
and maximizing life time [6].
Routing protocols in WSNs can be classified, in terms of
network structure, into three main categories [3]: data-centric
flat routing, hierarchical routing and location based routing.
Data centric flat routing protocols are query-based and they use
an attribute-based naming mechanism to specify the desired
data, which helps to eliminate many redundant transmissions.
Hierarchical protocols use cluster heads to aggregate the data
towards the base station and consequently reduce the number
of packets in the network in order to save energy. Locationbased protocols make use of the position information to relay
the data to the preferred regions within the network rather than
overwhelming the whole network with traffic.
A. Data Centric Flat Routing Protocols
In general, data-centric flat routing protocols perform innetwork aggregation of data to achieve energy efficient
dissemination. Data aggregation allows the fusion of data
coming from different sources in order to eliminate
redundancy, minimize the number of transmissions and thus
save energy. In this routing approach, the sink node sends
queries with attribute-based naming to specific regions and
waits for desired types of data from the sensors located in the
selected regions. Sensor Protocols for Information via
Negotiation (SPIN) is considered as one of the first data centric
flat routing protocols [3]. SPIN nodes assign high-level names
to their data, called meta-data. In order to save energy metadata is used to allow nodes to negotiate with each other before
transmitting the actual data to avoid transmitting redundant
data in the network.

D. Cross Layer Routing Approach

Cross layer design is another promising paradigm for
energy and lifetime optimization in wireless systems [6]. The
central idea of cross-layer design is to optimize the control and
exchange of information over two or more layers to achieve
major performance improvements by exploiting the
interactions between various protocol layers. Fig. 1 illustrates
the cross-layer information exchange process between the
different layers in WSNs.

B. Hierarchical protocols
The basic idea of hierarchical routing (or cluster based
routing) is to organize the sensor nodes into clusters. Clusterheads perform local data fusion and aggregation functions to
reduce the number of the packets and energy consumption in
the network. This approach enables better scalability of the
network by allowing multi-hop communication within the
clusters. The quintessential protocol in this category is the Low
Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy protocol or LEACH [4].
LEACH is a cluster-based protocol with distributed cluster
formation based on the received signal strength. The algorithm
randomly selects cluster heads and rotates this role to different
node in order to distribute the consumption of energy
uniformly.

Figure 1. Cross layer information exchange

Cross Layer Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor
Networks (XLRP) is designed to support different transmitting
power levels based on the volume of the data [7]. XLRP relies
on the information from the application and physical layers and
it supports transmission at varying power levels based on the
volume of the data being transmitted. This protocol saves
energy by switching OFF unintended receivers based on the
power of the received radio signal.
An Experimental Implementation of a Cross-Layer Network
Protocol Stack for Wireless Sensor Networks (X-Layer)
introduces the pairwise interactions between non-neighboring
layers such as the interaction between the transport and the
physical layers [8]. These bonus interactions represent
opportunities for the cross-layer approach to improve
performance over the traditional independently layered network
stack where data structures and buffers can be shared across
many layers; thus, reducing memory requirements. The
objective of this algorithm is to reduce the transmission power
and thus reduce the energy consumption while still maintaining
good link quality.

C. Location-Based Protocols
In location-based protocols, nodes are addressed by their
location where the distance to the neighboring nodes can be
estimated by signal strength or by GPS receivers. In most
cases, location information is needed in order to calculate the
distance between two particular nodes and is used to estimate
energy in an efficient manner.
Geographical and Energy-Aware Routing (GEAR) employs
the use of geographic information while disseminating queries
to approximate regions since data queries often include
geographic attributes [3]. It uses energy-aware and
geographically informed neighbor selection to route packets

The proposed Cross-Layer Information-Sharing Architecture

for Wireless Sensor Networks (X-LISA) design in [9] is an
information-sharing architecture that facilitates vertical as well

178

as horizontal cross-layer optimizations in wireless sensor

networks through a cross-layer optimization interface (CLOI).
The information addressed by CLOI is stored and maintained
in the local data structure of nodes. All layers have access to
this information to ensure cross-layer optimizations.

transmission level to enable the routing algorithm to make a

decision about what node to select as the next hop to reach the
base station. Nodes exchange energy information by
piggybacking their current levels along with interest and data
messages. Each node maintains a linked list of neighbors
residual energy levels. Parameters collected by each node in a
localized manner are used as inputs to the fuzzy logic
controller; the output of this step is a probability of choosing a
given neighbor as a router node. The fuzzy logic controller
basically helps in the decision making process by weighing the
tradeoffs between significance and precision [10]. Fuzzy logic
systems are well known as model-free where the membership
functions are not based on statistical distributions. Over time
the system exhibits self-organization characteristics where the
path changes to avoid over-burdening router nodes by selecting
paths that can extend the lifetime of the system.

Although different researchers show many advantages with

cross layer design, previous work has mostly focused on joint
design of two or three layers such as the PHY, MAC and
routing layers. Our work extends the previous work by
introducing the energy level of the neighboring nodes in the
equation. This information piggy backs in the control packets
communicated between nodes. Our protocol uses the freely
available byte in ZigBee protocol to avoid transmission of
more information as the communication consumes more
energy.
III.

THE PROPOSED FUZZY-LOGIC BASED TECHNIQUE

WSNs are required to be highly scalable and the fuzzy-based

routing scheme can naturally lend itself towards minimizing the
consumed energy through dynamic statistical reselection of
the next hop. The proposed routing technique makes use of a
self-adaptive scheme based on a fuzzy control algorithm that
adapts according to varying measureable parameters. The
proposed technique takes into consideration scalability (in
terms of the number of nodes), self-learning (i.e., adapt to
changes in the ambient environment), and focuses on the entire
network longevity (i.e., extend the lifetime of the network as a
whole). The algorithm uses two main components, a fuzzy
controller and a cross-layer module that collects parameters
from other layers. These components are implemented in all
nodes as part of the routing algorithms. Each node has two
roles, namely: sensing and data forwarding. In general a node
would have multiple neighbors where data can be forwarded.
In WSNs, a node does not have a global view of the network
(i.e., a node keeps track of neighbors connectivity only). Thus,
a routing protocol design should depend on local data to
achieve network-wide goals. The next hop selection is
determined by the proposed algorithm based on the local view
of the node and will have a positive global impact on the
network.

Figure 2. Node communication in WSNs

The four basic elements of a typical fuzzy logic controller are
shown in Fig. 3. These elements are: the fuzzifier, the inference
engine, the Fuzzy Rule Base (FRB) and the defuzzifier. The
roles that these four elements serve in the preposed algorithm
are as follows:

A. Sensor node roles and best neighbor election

To illustrate our point, lets take a look at the simplified WSN
displayed in Fig. 2. Node A does not have a global view of the
network; however it knows the characteristics of the links to
nodes within its transmission range (i.e., nodes B , C ,andD in
this case). All other links are unknown to node A view. The
problem develops if node A keeps choosing node D as its
router node each time it needs to send data to the sink without
taking in consideration other alternates. In this case, node D
would deplete its battery reserve and die. To resolve this issue,
the proposed algorithm changes the router node dynamically
using a fuzzy logic controller as the energy of the neighboring
nodes changes. Thus, extending the lifetime of each sensor
node and maintaining similar energy consumption across all
nodes in the network.

Figure 3. Fuzzy Logic Controller components

1) Fuzzification of the input variables
Our algorithm uses the remaining battery level, received
signal strength and a transmission level energy of a node as the
input parameters. The first step is to take the crisp inputs and
map them to the appropriate fuzzy sets. The modified input
variables are: (1) The Relative Energy Level (REL) of a node,
defined as the residual energy of a node with respect to the
neighborhood. This factor is calculated as:

 =

B. Fuzzy Controller Design

The proposed scheme uses three parameters: battery level of
neighboring node, received signal strength, and node






(1)

Where Emax, Emin are the maximum and minimum energy

levels in the neighborhood. Enode is the Nodes residual energy

179

level. Based on this definition, the higher the REL, the lesser is
the criticality of a node. (2) The Received Signal Strength
(RSSI), this value is measured directly using the radio chip (CC
2420). To calculate RSSI, we used the theoretical power
relations between an idealized transmitting antenna and a
receiving sensor node based on Friis transmission equation:

 =    



Figure 4. Battery Level Membership Function

The Degree of Membership (DOM) represents the
magnitude of participation of a nodes energy level, RSSI or
TX level in a fuzzy set. Even through REL is already between
0 and 1, DOM is still used as it is part of the fuzzy process of
Mamdanis process used here. Fuzzy Rules or rule evaluation
occurs when the system takes the fuzzified inputs, and applies
them to the antecedents of the fuzzy rules. It is then applied to
the consequent membership functions. Using the rule-based
structure of fuzzy logic, a series of IF X AND Y THEN Z rules
are defined for the output response given the input conditions.
The proposed fuzzy rules as shown in Table 3.

(2)

Where PRx is the received power, PTx is the transmission power,

is the signal wavelength and d is distance between the sender
and the receiver, Gt and Gr are the antenna gain of the
transmitter and the receiver. The proposed system supports
seven transmission power levels as shown in Table 1 [12].
Switching from one level to another based on the battery level
of a node at the MAC layer could help extend the lifetime of
the node.

Table 3. Proposed Fuzzy Rules

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27

Table 1. Transmission levels and their power consumptions

Output
power
level

Current
Consumption
[mA]

Power (mW)

Equivalence
distance (m)

level 7

17.4

31.32

up to 100m

level 6

16.5

29.7

up to 97m

Level 5

15.2

27.36

up to 93m

Level 4

13.9

25.02

up to 89m

Level 3

12.5

22.5

up to 85m

Level 2

11.2

20.16

up to 81m

Level 1

9.9

17.86

up to 77m

The linguistic variables for the fuzzy parameters and their

values are shown in Table 2.
Table 2. The parameters and their possible values
Parameters

Values

Remaining battery

Low, Moderate, High

Distance

Low, Moderate, High

RSSI

Low, Moderate, High

Probability

Low, Moderate, High

REL
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
High
High
High
High
High
High
High
High
High

TX
Low
Low
Low
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
High
High
High
Low
Low
Low
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
High
High
High
Low
Low
Low
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
High
High
High

RSSI
Low
Moderate
High
Low
Moderate
High
Low
Moderate
High
Low
Moderate
High
Low
Moderate
High
Low
Moderate
High
Low
Moderate
High
Low
Moderate
High
Low
Moderate
High

Decision
0
0
0
0
P
P
0
P
1
0
P
P
P
1
1
P
1
1
0
P
1
P
1
1
1
1
1

3) Fuzzy Inference Engine

The fuzzy inference engine aggregates the rule outputs. The
unification process is done based on the calculated rules
weights and the Max-Min interference method.

2) Membership functions
The design uses triangular membership functions (Fig. 4)
for each input and output as it is commonly used and simple to
implement. The selection of member function is based on the
author experience as complex or simple function does not add
any prevision to the fuzzy controller.

4) Defuzzification and Fuzzy Control

The input for the defuzzification process is the aggregate
output fuzzy set and the output is a single crisp number, where
the fuzzy response Pf is computed using the following centroid
method:

 =


%() "#$% &$%

%() " #$% &

(3)

Where n is the number of rules activated. ki is the output

consequent value activated. -,./ *#+, & is the corresponding
Rule Degree of Membership Value.
The adaptive learning of nodes is achieved by in-network
processing (i.e. nodes making their own decision as messages
are sent/received) as nodes are in promiscuous modes. It is

180

A node is considered dead when it has no more energy. The

simulation model has one base station considered as the
destination node for all data packets. The control messages are
64 bytes long, and the size of a data packet is set 512 bytes.
Table 4 lists the configuration parameters used in our study.

important to point out also that looping is avoided in the

network by dropping redundant messages received by
intermediate nodes. A sequence number is assigned for each
data packet by the message originator.

Table 4: Simulation Parameters

Figure 5. Binary representation of system parameters

A pre-defined array of 16 bits that represent the status of a
node based on fuzzy input parameters is shown in Fig. 5. The
significance of this array of bits is as follows (from right to
left):
1.

Battery level: It indicates the amount of energy left in

the nodes batteries.

3.

Transmission level: to support the seven power

transmission levels described in TelosB datasheet.
IV.

36, scattered uniformly in the field

Topology

450 m by 450 m

Radio range of nodes

250 m

Channel bandwidth

1.6 Mb/s

Simulation run time

1000 sec

Initial energy of nodes

300 Joules

Transmission power
consumption

Varied from .2916352 to .5131468 mW

for data messages,
From .036454 to .0641433 mW for
control message.

Mode: The mode indicates whether a sensor can

function as a router (value 1) or not (value 0).

2.

Number of nodes

Receive: power consumed

35.46 mW

Number of sinks

Event/data message size

512 bytes

Control message size

64 bytes

Data generation rate

1 per 3 sec

Propagation model

Free space propagation model

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

OMNET++ was used to simulate the algorithm. OMNET++

(Objective Modular Network Testbed) is an object oriented
discrete event simulator that uses C++ as the programming
language. It is mainly used to simulate communication
networks and other distributed systems [13]. This work utilizes
the AdHocSim package developed in OMNeT++ to model ad
hoc networks, in which AODV protocol and several mobility
models are implemented. AdHocSim was developed by Nicola
Concer as part of his thesis at the Department of Computer
Science of the University of Bologna. AdHocSim provides a
simple platform on which the simulation model of our energy
efficient protocol is developed.

Sink nodes generate interests (specifying the monitoring

rate and duration) and broadcasted it throughout the network.
Source nodes in the simulation periodically (every 3 sec in our
case) generate events (monitor information) and communicate
them to sink nodes throughout the task duration. We modified
the messages to include the nodes current energy level and all
nodes maintain an energy linked-list to keep the collected
neighborhood energy information. Two performance metrics
have been used; namely, the residual energy in individual
nodes and the overall residual energy in the network. In
addition, the simulation keeps track of the evolution of the
residual energy over time until the first node dies.

To test, analyze and easily compare the performance of the

proposed algorithm, the AdhocSim AODV algorithm was
modified to implement the proposed energy efficient routing
algorithm. The modification added the power module that
measures the energy used by a nodes radio each time a node
sends or receives a packet. The mobility module was also
eliminated from AdHocSim to make the network topology
fixed where nodes have static positions. Two simulations were
run one for AODV without the proposed algorithm and the
other for AODV with the proposed algorithm. Both simulations
have the exact same node distribution.

Fig. 7 shows the energy consumption of the first-dying node in

the network, nodes start with 300 Joules at the beginning of the
simulation and data is recorded every 20 seconds. The first
dying node represents the weakest node in the network at the
simulation instance. It is important for the network to keep the
nodes alive as long as possible, so avoiding the weakest link is
significant for prolonging network lifetime and connectivity.
As the results show, AODV has almost linear energy drain
even for the weakest node. This confirms that there is no
energy adaptiveness at the node level while the cross layer
fuzzy based routing performs differently over the simulation
period. Using our proposed approach, nodes become more
conservative when the battery parameter REL becomes LOW,
this affects the fuzzy decision and consequently helps in
choosing another node for forwarding the packets.

In order to add the power module to the network topology

the mobilehost.ned file was edited so it contains the new
input connection from the MAC layer.
The simulation model used in our study has 36 nodes
forming a random topology. Initially, each node has the same
energy level as specified in the energy model (i.e. 300 Joules).

181

12000

AODV

Total Network Energy

Remaining (J)

Residual Energy (J)

350
300
250

Cross Layer Fuzzy

Based Routing

200
150
100
50

10000

AODV

8000
6000

Cross Layer Fuzzy

Based Routing

4000
2000
0

0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
1100
1200
1300
1400
1500
1600
1700

0
40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 360 400

Simulation Time (S)

Simulation Time (S)
Figure 8. Residual Network Energy

Figure 7. First dying nodes energy profile

REFERENCES

Network energy was extracted from all nodes every 100 sec
during the simulation for the purpose of comparing the
evolution of the total residual energy over time for the routing
protocols under study. The results are presented in Fig. 8. It is
clear from the histogram that the network lifetime is prolonged
when using the proposed cross-layer fuzzy based routing
approach. In this specific simulation scenario, the network
lifetime was extended by 1000 simulation seconds. The
performance improvement might be much higher with
optimized fuzzy and configuration parameters. Adapting these
parameters is a subject of further research.
I.

[1] M. Sujeethnanda, P. Nayak, and G. Ramamurthy, A Novel Approach to

an Energy Aware Routing Protocol for Mobile WSN: QoS Provision, in
International Conference on Advanaces in Computing and Communications
(ICACC), pp. 38 4, 2012.
[2] L. Tran-Thanh and J. Levendovszky, A Novel Reliability Based
Routing Protocols for Power Aware Communications in Wireless Sensor
Networks, in Wireless Communications and Networking Conference
(WCNC), pp. 1-6, 2009.
[3] K. Akkaya and M. Younis, A Survey on Routing Protocols for Wireless
Sensor Networks,Ad Hoc Networks, Vol. 3, pp. 325-349, May 2005.
[4] W. Heinzelman, A. Chandrakasan, and H. Balakrishnan, EnergyEfficient Communications Protocols for Wireless Microsensor Networks
(LEACH), Proc. of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on Systems
Science, Volume 8, pp. 3005-3014, 2000.
[5] B. Kechar, A. Louzani, L. Sekhri, and M. Khelfi, Energy Efficient
Cross-Layer MAC Protocol for Wireless Networks, in Proc. of the 2nd
International Workshop on Verification and Evaluation of Computer and
Communication Systems, July 2008.
[6] T. Melodia, M. C. Vuran, and D. Pompili, The State of the Art in
Cross-Layer Design for Wireless Sensor Network, in Wireless systems and
network architectures in next generation internet: Second International
Workshop of the EURO-NGI Network of Excellence, pp. 78-92, Italy 2005.
[7] N. Zhao and L. Sun, Research on Cross-Layer Frameworks Design in
Wireless Sensor Networks, in Proc. of the Third International Conference on
Wireless and Mobile Communications, France, 2007.
[8] R. Gunasekaran and H. Qi, XLRP: Cross Layer Routing Protocol for
Wireless Sensor Networks, in Wireless Communications and Networking
Conference, (WCNC 2008), pp. 2135 2140, 2008.
[9] I. F. Akyildiz, M. C. Vuran, and O. B.Akan, A Cross-Layer Protocol
for Wireless Sensor Networks, in Proc. of the 40th Annual Conference on
Information Sciences and Systems, Princeton, NJ, pp. pages 1102 1107,
2006.
[10] M. Balakrishnan and E. E. Johnson, Fuzzy Diffusion for Distributed
Sensor Networks, in Military Communications Conference, (MILCOM
2005), Atlantic City, NJ, pp. 1-6, 2005.
[11] G. Goebel (2003). An Introduction to Fuzzy Control Systems [online].
Available: http://www.faqs.org/docs/fuzzy/.
[12] J. Polastre, R. Szewczyk and D. Culler, Telos: Enabling Ultra-Low
Power Wireless Research, in Proc. of the 4th international symposium on
Information processing in sensor networks, Los Angeles, CA, April 2005, pp.
364-369.
[13] OMNET Technologies, OMNET Modeler 8.0.[online]. Available:
http://www.omnet.com/

CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK

WSN is a multi-hop constraint-based network where energy

is a limited resource. In this work, we proposed a fuzzy logic
based system to prolong the sensor nodes lifetime. A routing
decision is made by each node based on the output of fuzzy
logic system. The used parameters include: the neighboring
node transmission level, neighboring node battery reserve level
and link quality. Simulation results shows that the proposed
cross layer fuzzy based algorithm outperforms AODV in terms
of energy consumption. Its important to mention here that the
parameters of the proposed algorithm are not optimized but we
plan to investigate this in future studies. We also plan to
compare this algorithm with other proposed energy aware
algorithms. The results from this work can be used to better
understand the impact of link quality on the overall routing
performance. Some directions for future work include the
investigation of more parameters that could be included in the
fuzzy decision controller (e.g., mobility and noise levels) and
compare with other energy-aware protocols such as LEACH,
GEAR, and XLRP. We also plan to implement the proposed
protocol in a real network using Telos motes and compare the
proposed protocol with other energy-aware sensor routing
protocols.

182