An Energy Efficient Cross-Layer Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Power is a precious resource in wireless sensor networks due to the limited battery capability. Once deployed, it is often difficult to charge or replace the batteries for these nodes. The capacity of batteries is not expected to improve much in the future. Prolonging the lifetime for nodes and the total network is a critical issue. Our lessons learned in working for wireless sensor networks show that energy efficiency can be improved at various layers of the communication protocol stacks. We propose an energy efficient Cross-Layer routing algorithm (E2CL) which relies on interactions between different concerned layers in order to attain longevity of sensor network. The simulation results show that our E2CL routing algorithm provides a good scheme for prolonging the lifetime of wireless sensor networks.