Congestion Detection Strategies in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Comparative Study with Testbed Experiments

Mohamed Amine Kafi (1, 2, 3) , Djamel Djenouri (3) , Jalel Ben Othman (4) , Abdelraouf Ouadjaout (2, 3) , Nadjib Badache (3, 2)

1 L2S - Laboratoire des signaux et systèmes
2 CERIST - Centre de recherche sur l'Information Scientifique et Technique
3 USTHB - Université des Sciences et de la Technologie Houari Boumediene = University of Sciences and Technology Houari Boumediene [Alger]
4 L2TI - Laboratoire de Traitement et Transport de l'Information

Event based applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are prone to traffic congestion, where unpredicted event detection yields simultaneous generation of traffic at spatially co-related nodes, and its propagation towards the sink. This results in loss of information and waste energy. Early congestion detection is thus of high importance in such WSN applications to avoid the propagation of such a problem and to reduce its consequences. Different detection metrics are used in the congestion control literature. However, a comparative study that investigates the different metrics in real sensor motes environment is missing. This paper focuses on this issue and compares some detection metrics in a testbed network with MICAz motes. Results show the effectiveness of each method in different scenarios and concludes that the combination of buffer length and channel load constitute the better candidate for early and fictive detection.

Mots clés: congestion control; Congestion Detection; Wireless sensor networks; transport protocols

Domaines: Réseaux et télécommunications [cs.NI]

Mohamed Amine Kafi, Djamel Djenouri, Jalel Ben Othman, Abdelraouf Ouadjaout, Nadjib Badache. Congestion Detection Strategies in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Comparative Study with Testbed Experiments. Procedia Computer Science, 2014, 37, pp.168 - 175. ⟨10.1016/j.procs.2014.08.026⟩. ⟨hal-01930911⟩