Sense and sensitivity: a large-scale experimental study of reactive gradient routing

This paper presents and evaluates a cross-layered communication architecture which allows for robust, reliable and efficient data collection in an embedded wireless multi-hop network. The proposed solution, based on a novel embodiment of gradient routing, proposes to piggyback control data along with data packets. We show how this simple scheme is robust against topological changes which are quickly absorbed by the network, and that it is largely unaffected by the density or size of the network. Experimental results confirm these observations and show how the nodes and sinks can be added/removed without disturbing network operation while staying energy efficient. The simple solution proposed in this paper offers a true deploy-and-forget user experience.