Virtual Coordinate Backtracking for Void Traversal in Geographic Routing

Geographical routing protocols have several desirable features for use in ad hoc and sensor networks but are susceptible to voids and localization errors. Virtual coordinate systems are an alternative solution to geographically based routing protocols that works by overlaying a coordinate system on the sensors relative to well chosen reference points. VC is resilient to localization errors; however, we show that it is vulnerable to different forms of the void problem and have no viable complementary approach to overcome them. Specifically, we show that there are instances when packets reach nodes with no viable next hop nodes in the forwarding set. In addition, it is possible for nodes with the same coordinates to arise at different points in the network in the presence of voids. This paper identifies and analyzes these problems. It also compares several existing routing protocols based on Virtual Coordinate systems. Finally, it presents a new routing algorithm that uses backtracking to overcome voids to achieve high connectivity in the greedy phase, higher overall path quality and more resilience to localization errors. We show these properties using extensive simulation analysis.