Copyright © 2012 Christian H. W. Oey et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Cognitive radio sensor networks (CRSNs) are the next generation wireless sensor networks (WSNs) that mitigate overcrowded unlicensed spectrum bands by opportunistically using temporally unoccupied unlicensed and licensed spectrum bands. In this paper, we propose a new energy- and cognitive-radio-aware routing (ECR) protocol that addresses the unique challenges in CRSNs, including dynamic spectrum access, single transceiver, and energy constraint. In particular, our proposed routing protocol performs joint node-channel assignment by taking energy into consideration, is aware of cognitive radio at the network layer, and can seize spectrum opportunity in other spectrum bands. We present a simple analytical model of the proposed ECR in the viewpoint of network-wide energy and compare it with that of the ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol. Furthermore, our simulation results show that, in relatively heavy traffic environment, ECR outperforms AODV in terms of network lifetime and packet delivery ratio. Nevertheless, scalability and communication complexity become the major issues of this protocol.