Tao Shaojun, Tang Hongying, Wang Jiang, Li Baoqing
Science and Technology on Micro-System Laboratory, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
Sensors (Basel). 2025 Jul 15;25(14):4416. doi: 10.3390/s25144416.
Multi-hop routing over low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) has emerged as a promising technology for extending network coverage. However, existing protocols face high transmission disruption risks due to factors such as dynamic topology driven by stochastic events, dynamic link quality, and coverage holes induced by imbalanced energy consumption. To address this issue, we propose a failure risk-aware deep Q-network-based multi-hop routing (FRDR) protocol, aiming to reduce transmission disruption probability. First, we design a power regulation mechanism (PRM) that works in conjunction with pre-selection rules to optimize end-device node (EN) activations and candidate relay selection. Second, we introduce the concept of routing failure risk value (RFRV) to quantify the potential failure risk posed by each candidate next-hop EN, which correlates with its neighborhood state characteristics (i.e., the number of neighbors, the residual energy level, and link quality). Third, a deep Q-network (DQN)-based routing decision mechanism is proposed, where a multi-objective reward function incorporating RFRV, residual energy, distance to the gateway, and transmission hops is utilized to determine the optimal next-hop. Simulation results demonstrate that FRDR outperforms existing protocols in terms of packet delivery rate and network lifetime while maintaining comparable transmission delay.
低功耗广域网（LPWAN）上的多跳路由已成为一种扩展网络覆盖范围的有前景的技术。然而，由于随机事件驱动的动态拓扑、动态链路质量以及能耗不平衡导致的覆盖空洞等因素，现有协议面临着较高的传输中断风险。为了解决这个问题，我们提出了一种基于深度Q网络的故障风险感知多跳路由（FRDR）协议，旨在降低传输中断概率。首先，我们设计了一种功率调节机制（PRM），它与预选择规则协同工作，以优化终端设备节点（EN）的激活和候选中继选择。其次，我们引入了路由故障风险值（RFRV）的概念，以量化每个候选下一跳EN带来的潜在故障风险，该风险与其邻域状态特征（即邻居数量、剩余能量水平和链路质量）相关。第三，提出了一种基于深度Q网络（DQN）的路由决策机制，其中利用一个包含RFRV、剩余能量、到网关的距离和传输跳数的多目标奖励函数来确定最优下一跳。仿真结果表明，FRDR在分组交付率和网络寿命方面优于现有协议，同时保持了相当的传输延迟。
