A Cost Function for QoS-Aware Routing in Multi-Tier Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

The Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) are formed by small devices that are able to capture video or audio information and to transmit it over wireless channels. The development of wireless technologies, such as: WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, UWB, etc., encourages the emergence of heterogeneous networks. However, only a few existing solutions take into account the constraints of multi-tier and multi-MAC networks. In this paper, the authors propose a cost function coupled to a new generic (independent on a MAC method) cross-layer routing protocol adapted to multimedia traffic over hierarchical and heterogeneous networks.