World Applied Sciences Journal 15 (5): 737-744, 2011 ISSN 1818-4952 © IDOSI Publications, 2011 Corresponding Author: Ali Ghaffari, Department of Computer Engineering, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran. Tel: +98-411-3317068, Fax: +98-411-3328560. 737 REMP: Reliable and Energy Balancing Multi-Path Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks Ali Ghaffari, Nasrin Firuz and Hanieh Rahbari Bannaeian Department of Computer Engineering, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran Abstract: Reliable and energy-efficient transmission of sensory data is a key problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). This is due to resource constraint and it is necessary to present a new routing algorithm that can provide these requirements in network layer. The main objectives of multipath routing protocols are to provide reliable communication and ensure load balancing as well as to improve quality of service (QoS) of WSNs. Satisfying Quality of Service requirements (e.g. reliability and delay constraints) for the different QoS based applications of WSNs raises significant challenges. More precisely, the networking protocols need to cope up with energy constraints, while providing precise QoS guarantee For this purpose, we propose a new reliable and energy balancing multi path routing algorithm (REMP) for wireless sensor networks. The REMP protocol guarantees the mentioned quality of service parameters in wireless sensor networks and balances the energy consumption in all sensor nodes. By means of simulations, we evaluate and compare the performance of our routing protocol with the MCMP (Multi-Constraint Multi-Path) and EQSR (Energy Efficient and QoS aware multipath routing protocol) routing protocol. Simulation results have shown that our protocol achieves more energy savings and higher packet delivery ratio than the other two protocols. Key words: Wireless sensor network %Multi-path routing %Reliablity %Energy balancing INTRODUCTION WSNs vary from civil, healthcare and environmental to In the recent years, the rapid advances in micro- in battlefields [1], habitat monitoring [2], civil structure electro-mechanical systems, low power and highly monitoring [3], forest fire detection [4] and factory integrated digital electronics, small scale energy supplies, maintenance [5]. However, with the specific consideration tiny microprocessors and low power radio technologies of the unique properties of sensor networks such limited have created low power, low cost and multifunctional power, stringent bandwidth, dynamic topology (due to wireless sensor devices, which can observe and react to nodes failures or even physical mobility), high network changes in physical phenomena of their environments. density and large scale deployments have caused many These sensor devices are equipped with a small battery, challenges in the design and management of sensor a tiny microprocessor, a radio transceiver and a set of networks. These challenges have demanded energy transducers that used to gathering information that report awareness and robust protocol designs at all layers of the the changes in the environment of the sensor node. The networking protocol stack [6]. Efficient utilization of emergence of these low cost and small size wireless sensor’s energy resources and maximizing the network sensor devices has motivated intensive research in the lifetime were and still are the main design considerations last decade addressing the potential of collaboration for the most proposed protocols and algorithms for among sensors in data gathering and processing, which sensor networks and have dominated most of the research led to the creation of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). in this area. The concepts of latency, throughput and A typical WSN consists of a number of sensor devices packet loss have not yet gained a great focus from the that collaborate with each other to accomplish a common research community. However, depending on the type of task (e.g. environment monitoring, target tracking, etc) application, the generated sensory data normally have and report the collected data through wireless interface to different attributes, where it may contain delay sensitive a base station or sink node. The areas of applications of and reliability demanding data. For example, the data military. Examples of applications include target tracking