MULTI-HOP LOOKAHEAD STRATEGIES FOR ROBUST ENERGY-EFFICIENT ROUTING IN WSNS

Abstract

When packets in routing paths travel through void or dead nodes, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) lose energy over time, and impacting the sensors by reducing lifespan and degrading packet delivery performance. In order to proactively address these issues, this study suggests three routing protocols: the Game Theory Based Protocol with Three-Hop Lookahead (GTBPS-3H), the Hole Alleviation-Energy-Conditioned Mean Absolute Error (HA-ECMAE), and its two-hop extension (HA-ECMAE2H). HA-ECMAE and HA-ECMAE2H choose forwarding nodes by combining residual energy checks with Mean Absolute Error (MAE)-based position estimates to reduce location-based routing errors. By dynamically allocating leader positions throughout a three-hop neighbourhood using the Stackelberg game model, GTBPS-3H distributes the forwarding burden and reduces interactions with void and dead nodes. Simulations against the WSNEHPA [16] and ECMSE [17] baselines reveal that HA-ECMAE increases Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) by 14% and decreases energy consumption by 15.2%, while HA-ECMAE2H increases PDR by 19% and decreases energy consumption by 18.7%, and GTBPS-3H increases PDR by 17% while extending network lifetime by 20%. These findings show [18] that when multi-hop lookahead is paired with energy-aware forwarder selection, network reliability, energy efficiency, and network lifetime improve consistently under realistic WSN conditions.

Keywords:   Wireless Sensor Network, Energy-Efficient Routing, Void Node Mitigation, Multi-Hop Forwarding, Game-Theoretic Routing, Topology-Aware Protocols