VRAC: Virtual Raw Anchor Coordinates Routing in Sensor Networks -- Concepts and Experimental Protocol

TL;DR

This paper introduces VRAC, a routing method that uses raw distances to anchors in a multi-dimensional space, eliminating the need for traditional localization, thus enabling robust geographic routing in large sensor networks.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel routing approach that bypasses traditional localization by directly utilizing raw anchor distances in a multi-dimensional space.

Findings

Enables geographic routing without node localization.

Reduces hardware and computational overhead.

Applicable to large-scale sensor networks.

Abstract

In order to make full use of geographic routing techniques developed for large scale networks, nodes must be localized. However, localization and virtual localization techniques in sensor networks are dependent either on expensive and sometimes unavailable hardware (e.g. GPS) or on sophisticated localization calculus (e.g. triangulation) which are both error-prone and with a costly overhead. Instead of localizing nodes in a traditional 2-dimensional space, we intend to use directly the raw distance to a set of anchors to route messages in the multi-dimensional space. This should enable us to use any geographic routing protocol in a robust and efficient manner in a very large range of scenarios.