DETOUR: Delay-And Energy-Aware Multi-Path Routing in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Streaming real-time applications require the timely distribution of information in mobile ad-hoc and sensor networks. At the same time, such networks must operate energy-efficiently to maximize the lifetime of mobile devices and applications. In multi-hop networks, multiple communication paths between a single sender and receiver can be established, with varying real-time and energy characteristics of each path. This paper introduces the DETOUR (Delay- and Energy- aware mulTicOUrse Routing) protocol that applies feedback-driven path diversification, where traffic load is balanced across two or more paths to ensure both timeliness and energy-efficiency.