Wireless Sensor Networks performing low-power data collection often suffer from uneven load distribution among nodes. Nodes close to the network root typically face a higher load, see their battery deplete first, and become prematurely unable to operate (both sensing and relaying other nodes' data). We argue that opportunistic routing, by making forwarding decision on a per-packet basis and at the receiver rather than the sender, has the potential to better balance the load across nodes. We extend ORPL, an opportunistic version of the standard routing protocol RPL, with support for load-balancing. In our protocol, ORPL-LB, nodes continuously adapt their wake-up interval in order to adjust their availability and attain a deployment-specific target duty cycle. We implement our protocol in Contikiand present our experimental validation in Indriya, a 93-nodestestbed. Our results show that ORPL-LB reduces significantly(by approximately 40%) the worst node's duty cycle, with little or no impact on packet delivery ratio and latency.

As part of a search for a better understanding of MAC/routing interactions in Wireless Sensor Networks, this paper presents an analysis of the behaviour of the AODV routing protocol when combined with a duty-cycle MAC protocol. In particular, the paper focuses on the time it takes for a route request to be answered in presence of increased latency due to the MAC protocol sleep schedule. The paper quantifies how the response time varies with the duty-cycle ratio. Moreover, recommendations are provided to enhance this response time.