Comparative Analysis of QoS-Aware Routing Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

The main ability of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is communicating and sensing between nodes, which are deployed in a wide area with a large number of nodes. Wireless sensor networks are composed of a large number of sensor nodes with limited energy resources. One critical issue in wireless sensor networks is how to gather sensed information in an energy efficient way, since their energy is limited. The limiting factors of the sensor nodes, such as their finite energy supplies and their moderate processing abilities, as well as the unreliable wireless medium restrict the performance of wireless sensor networks While contemporary best-effort routing approaches address unconstrained traffic, QoS routing is usually performed through resource reservation in a connection-oriented communication in order to meet the QoS requirements for each individual connection. This article surveys a sample of existing QoS-Aware Routing Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks and highlights their key features, including merits and limitations. Keywords: Wireless sensor networks, Routing protocols, QoS-Aware Routing Protocols