Int. J. Mobile Network Design and Innovation, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2007 105 An energy-efficient heterogeneous dual routing scheme for mobile ad hoc and sensor networks Subhankar Dhar* Department of Management Information Systems, San Jose State University, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192,USA Fax: +408-924-7793 E-mail: dhar_s@cob.sjsu.edu *Corresponding author Michael Q. Rieck Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Drake University, Des Moines, IA 50311, USA E-mail: mrieck@drake.edu Abstract: New energy-efficient routing algorithms are introduced, based on a generalisation of the k-SPR sets from earlier work by the authors. This generalisation provides a means for the automatic avoidance of certain nodes and links when messages are routed. Sensor networks are modelled as connected graphs with vertex costs and edge costs. In addition, a two-tiered routing system in introduced. The low level routing is used for local routing within k hops, and is essentially (local) link-state routing. The high level routing depends on the routers from a k-SPR set, to manage this global routing. Keywords: sensor network; routing; dominating set; manet; minimal path; energy-efficient protocol. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Dhar, S. and Rieck, M.Q. (2007) ‘An energy-efficient heterogeneous dual routing scheme for mobile ad hoc and sensor networks’, Int. J. Mobile Network Design and Innovation, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp.105–115. Biographical notes: Subhankar Dhar is a leading expert in Mobile and Pervasive Computing, Information Systems Outsourcing and is a Faculty Member in the Department of Management Information Systems at the Lucas Graduate School of Business at San José State University. He serves as a Member of the Editorial Board of International Journal of Business Data Communications and Networking. He has received numerous awards and grants for his significant contribution in academic research. He also gave Lectures, presentations to various international conferences and seminars. He received his PhD from the University of South Florida and has several years of experience in software development, consulting for Fortune 500 and high-tech start-ups including product planning, design and information systems management. Michael Q. Rieck is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Drake University. His research areas include ad hoc wireless networks, graph theory, combinatorics, finite fields and linear algebra. He has published papers in several leading journals such as Discrete Mathematics, Linear Algebra and its Applications, Computer Networks Journal and the Journal of Microprocessors and Microsystems. He has also provided a book chapter for ‘New Research on Wireless Communications’ (Nova Science Publishers). 1 Introduction Distributed wireless sensor networks have been one of the most prolific areas of network research as numerous new applications began to emerge. However, the sensors have very limited battery power and conserving energy is an important research problem. The research community has been engaged in designing energy-efficient protocols to address this issue (Chen et al., 2001). Our own research has been largely motivated by outstanding issues concerning energy-efficient routing, which we have addressed by generalising certain k-dominating sets (i.e. every vertex is within k hops of a vertex in such a set) that facilitate shortest path routing. These sets were introduced in our earlier work (Dhar et al., 2003a,b, 2004; Rieck et al., 2002) where they are referred to as ‘k-SPR sets’. ‘SPR’ stands for ‘shortest path routing’. Copyright © 2007 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.