A neighbour disjoint multipath scheme for fault tolerant wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we propose a 'Neighbour Disjoint Multipath (NDM)' scheme that increases resilience against node or link failures in a wireless sensor network (WSN). Our algorithm chooses the shortest path between a sensor and the sink as the primary path, thus ensuring the algorithm is energy efficient under normal circumstances. In selecting the backup paths, we utilise the disjoint property to ensure that i) when there are k paths between source and sink, no set of k node failures can result in total communication break between them, and ii) by having (k-1) spatially separated backup paths w.r.t. the primary path, the probability of simultaneous failure of the primary and backup paths is reduced in case of localised poor channel quality or node failures. Our algorithm not only ensures the node disjointedness characteristics of the constructed paths, but also tries to minimise the impact of co-located node or link failures where a localised portion of the network may be unusable. We analyse the motivation behind our idea clearly, and discuss the algorithm in detail. We also compare the NDM scheme with other common multipath techniques such as node-disjoint and edge-disjoint approaches, and point out its effectiveness through simulation.