Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), being a relatively new technology, largely employ protocols designed for other ad hoc networks, especially mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). However, on the basis of applications, there are many differences between WSNs and other types of ad hoc network and so WSNs would benefit from protocols which take into account their specific properties, especially in routing. Bhatti and Yue (2006) proposed an addressing scheme for multi-hop networks. It provides a

more »

... c address structure for WSNs and allows network topology to avoid the fatal node failure problem which could occur with the ZigBee tree structure. In this work, a new routing strategy is developed based on Bhatti and Yue's addressing scheme. The new approach is to implement a hybrid flooding scheme that combines flooding with shortest-path methods to yield a more practical routing protocol for static WSN applications. The primary idea is to set a flooding counter K as an overhead parameter of control messages which are used to discover routes between any arbitrary nodes. These route request messages are flooded for K hops and then oriented by shortest-path routing from multiple nodes in the edge of the flooding area to the destination. The simulation results show that this protocol under certain wireless circumstances is more energy conscious and produces less redundancy than reactive ZigBee routing protocol. Another advantage is that the routing protocol can adapt any dynamic environment in various WSN applications to achieve a satisfactory data delivery ratio in exchange for redundancy.