Abstract
As sensor nodes are power constrained, saving energy and prolonging network lifetime have been given the greatest priority in the design of routing protocols in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this regard, duty-cycling is broadly utilized as an underlying MAC (Medium Access Control)-based protocol for routing solutions. In this regard, a cross-layer approach, integrating MAC and routing protocols, is required to achieve a trade-off between energy efficiency and communication reliability, through adapting nodes duty-cycle to routing decisions. Besides, with the proliferation of WSNs applications in various domains, achieving energy efficiency should not be performed while ignoring the diverse quality of service (QoS) demands of the considered applications to ensure their well functioning. In this context, we propose a context-aware routing framework under duty-cycled networks, a generic framework that allows to support heterogeneous applications and traffic patterns. An evaluation of the framework is also proposed in this paper. Results prove the effectiveness of context-awareness and the cross-layer interaction between the different modules of the framework to guarantee desired QoS while reducing energy consumption.