Energy-aware, delay-constrained routing in wireless sensor networks through genetic algorithm

In this paper, we propose an energy-aware QoS routing protocol for wireless sensor networks. The protocol finds energy-efficient paths for delay-constrained data in realtime traffic. The described QoS routing problem is very similar to typical path constrained path optimization (PCPO) problems, which are proved to be NP-complete. Hence we present a heuristic solution for the aforesaid problem. We use a genetic algorithm (GA) to create energy efficient QoS routing. Our algorithm generates a sequence of routing paths that maximizes the system lifetime.Network lifetime can be defined as the time it takes for the first node or a fraction of all the nodes in the network to be depleted of their energies, we want to maximize network lifetime, instead of the average time over all scenarios. Simulation results have demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach for different metrics.