Broadcast-based routing protocol for smart lighting systems

We consider a smart lighting system, where sensors and actuators deployed on lamp posts generate data intended for a sink at the end of a street, thus creating a linear wireless network (LWN). We propose a novel broadcast-based routing protocol for this type of networks. During an initial discovery phase each node identifies its neighbours and selects its best neighbour as the one closest to the sink. Data is then transmitted in broadcast, by prioritising the best neighbour as forwarder. The protocol allows packets to reach the sink through a small number of hops and consequently improve throughput and packet delivery probability compared to existing solutions. The proposed protocol has been implemented, tested and compared to standard solutions based on IEEE 802.15.4 and Zigbee. Experimental results, in terms of packet loss rate, throughput and number of hops to reach the sink, show the improvement with respect to the existing solutions.