Energy-Efficient Opportunistic Routing Algorithm for Post-Disaster Mine Internet of Things Networks

Area of Science:

• Mine safety engineering
• Wireless sensor networks
• Network reliability

Background:

• The Mine Internet of Things (MIoT) is crucial for post-disaster communication in mines.
• Underground mine environments present challenges like signal attenuation, node vulnerability, and limited energy.
• Existing MIoT networks exhibit low reliability in post-disaster scenarios.

Purpose of the Study:

• To improve transmission reliability in post-disaster MIoT networks.
• To reduce energy consumption in MIoT operations.
• To enhance the overall network lifetime and performance.

Main Methods:

• Proposed a directional-area-forwarding-based energy-efficient opportunistic routing (DEOR) approach.
• Defined a forwarding zone (FZ) for packet routing towards the sink.
• Constructed a candidate forwarding set (CFS) based on energy and node degree constraints.
• Prioritized nodes in CFS using a routing quality evaluation considering directional angle, distance, and residual energy.
• Implemented a recovery mechanism for void nodes.

Main Results:

• DEOR demonstrated superior performance compared to ORR, OBRN, and ECSOR methods.
• Achieved lower energy consumption.
• Reduced average hop count.
• Increased packet delivery rate.
• Extended network lifetime.

Conclusions:

• The proposed DEOR approach effectively addresses the reliability and energy efficiency challenges in post-disaster MIoT.
• DEOR offers a robust solution for maintaining communication networks in hazardous underground environments.
• Simulation results validate the significant improvements offered by DEOR over existing methods.