A green and reliable communication modeling for industrial internet of things

•An improved protocol (HTP) is proposed through combining SW-ARQ and NCRT scheme.•HTP protocol is a strategy which can optimize multiple performances at the same time.•HTP protocol is proved to improve lifetime above 15% under same reliability.•HTP protocol is proved to improve reliability by 10%–45% under same lifetime.•HTP protocol is more practicality which allows low complexity implementation. Green and reliable communication has great significance for Industrial Internet of Things. Unfortunately, because of the loss nature, achieving reliable transmission is challenging. In this paper, a novel hybrid transmission protocol (HTP) is proposed to maximize lifetime while the reliability is still guaranteed. The proposed protocol adopts Send-Wait automatic Repeat-Request protocol in hotspot areas to reduce the energy consumption and network coding based redundant transmission approach with adaptive redundancy level in non-hotspot areas to guarantee the reliability. The proposed protocol could improve the lifetime and shorten the delay on the premise of ensuring the reliability. Comparing with Send-Wait automatic Repeat-Request protocol, it can improve lifetime by 15%–30% under the same reliability and improve the reliability by 12%–45% under the same lifetime. Comparing with network coding based redundant transmission approach, the lifetime has increased by more than one time under the same reliability. [Display omitted]