Routing metric method for opportunistic routing in wireless mesh network

The invention provides a routing metric method suitable for opportunistic routing in a wireless mesh network, which is used for calculating minimum transmission times required for transmitting a packet successfully during opportunistic transmission between a source node and a destination node, defining a distance between the nodes according to the routing metric and dividing upstream nodes and downstream nodes. The method takes the broadcasting characteristics of the opportunistic routing into full consideration and allows the nodes, which receive data packets, in a network to take part in the forwarding by making use of the transmission capacity of idle nodes in the network, so the minimum transmission times required for transmitting the packet successfully when the packet is forwarded between the nodes in an opportunistic routing manner are obtained. Compared with the forwarding nodes of the traditional routing metric, the forwarding node which is selected by taking the minimum transmission times as the routing metric is more suitable for the selection of an opportunistic forwarding node set in the opportunistic routing.