The performance of QoS in wireless sensor networks
Néstor Zamora Cedeño, Orlando Philco Asqui, Emily Estupiñan Chaw
Universidad Católica Santiago de Guayaquil
Facultad de Educación Técnica para el Desarrollo
Guayaquil, Ecuador
nestor.zamora@cu.ucsg.edu.ec, luis.philco@cu.ucsg.edu.ec, emily.estupinan.chaw@gmail.com
Abstract — This research paper provides a brief description of the
wireless sensor network and the protocol to be used. Through this
technology, benefits are obtained that provide the sensor networks
together with greater freedom when placing the sensors in the
vicinity of the target. In wireless sensor networks, routing is a
critical and important aspect. The work focuses on the performance
of the quality of services in the wireless sensor network (WSN)
under the AODV routing protocol. This document tries to
characterize the AODV protocol by performing simulations in the
NS3 (Network Simulator Version 3) program. In the simulations of
the AODV protocol, a set of metrics that can be used for
comparisons in different scenarios are shown. The main objective
of this document will be to offer a suitable simulation environment
to determine the operation of the protocol to be used in wireless
sensor networks.
Keywords – WSN; AODV; NS-3; Throughput.; QoS; protocol
I. INTRODUCTION
The wireless sensor networks (WSN) constitute a large variety
of nodes organized in a cooperative network, which uses
sensors in an area to monitor climatic conditions. These
networks acquire an ease of expansion and their ability to
repair themselves [1].The development of wireless sensor
networks was motivated by military applications such as
surveillance on the battlefield [2] ; Nowadays, these networks
are used in many areas of industrial and civil application,
including the monitoring and control of industrial processes,
the monitoring of the state of the machine, the monitoring of
the environment and the habitat, the applications of medical
attention, the automation of home and traffic control. The
performance of a WSN is normally determined by its average
power consumption, which in turn determines the network's
lifetime (period for which the network remains functional)[3].
The WSN must achieve the ability to control the overall
performance of the network to ensure transmission with quality
of service [4]. Quality of service (QoS) is defined as a
collective effect of performance service, which determines the
degree of satisfaction of a user's service [5], [6].
In general, the QoS of telecommunications networks justifies
controls and evaluations of devices [7]. The QoS is oriented to
the evaluation of the management of delay parameters,
variation of delay (jitter), loss of packets in a network, and
energy consumption, looking for a suitable configuration of the
protocol to obtain a good response for these variables.
The purpose of this research work is to evaluate the
performance of the wireless sensor network under the AODV
reactive routing protocol with the quality of services using the
NS-3 simulation platform. The rest of the research work is
divided in the following way: section II the fundamental
2019 14th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI)
19 – 22 June 2019, Coimbra, Portugal
ISBN: 978-989-98434-9-3
concepts of the sensor network are detailed the protocol to be
used, in section III the simulations is presented in NS-3 , in
section IV they are exposed the results and in section V show
the conclusions.
II. WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
Wireless sensor networks have their own characteristics and
some of the appropriate Ad-Hoc networks such as [8]:
A. Dynamic topology:
The wireless sensor network can change its topology
dynamically, allowing them to adapt to possible changes in the
environment, even having mobile nodes that can move through
the network's deployment area.
B. Channel variability.:
This feature has the ability that the radio channel is very
variable, which can be away from the phenomena that exist
such as attenuation, fading and interference that can produce
errors in the data [9].
C. Error tolerance:
In the sensor network, all devices must have the ability to
continue their operation under any circumstance.
D. Energy consumption:
This characteristic is one of the sensitive ones since this
network has a limited energy capacity, for this reason each
sensor node has a low consumption processor making the
energy consumption more restrictive [10].
III. AODV PROTOCOL.
Wireless sensor networks need routing protocols because they
are essential in the lifespan of these networks [11], the protocol
most used for this type of network is the AODV (On-Demand
Distance Vector Routing) protocol, since it looks for the
shortest route and the lowest number of jumps, causing the
nodes to reduce traffic while avoiding energy consumption
[12].
The AODV protocol is a reactive protocol that means that it
exerts only if there is a need to transmit to a destination through
an unknown route [13], [14]. The AODV is a protocol that uses
less bandwidth and computational processing, since it does not
send packets unless it is necessary. It works well in conditions
where mobility is high, incorporates mechanisms to avoid the
formation of loops and quickly detects changes in the topology
of the network adapting the routes to these changes [12].
AODV is a demand routing algorithm that establishes a link For wireless sensor network performance is evaluated in three
between a source node and a destination node, only when it scenarios of 15, 30 and 60 nodes, using the AODV protocol
needs to send information, and discards the route at the end of with a mesh topology, a simulation time of 100 seconds and a
the exchange, generating a new connection in case of another random uniform distribution. As seen in fig.1- 3.
shipment. This protocol uses a route discovery mechanism in
broadcast mode, in which route request messages (RREQ,
Route Request) and route response messages (RREP, Route
Reply) are exchanged [15], [16].
• Route Request (RREQ): Generated by the source node and
forwarded through the intermediate nodes to the destination
node. It allows a discovery of possible paths to the destination
[17].
• Route Reply (RREP): Message generated from the
destination to the origin through a single route, chosen for
transmission [18].
• Route Error (RERR): Error message that is generated when
a link is interrupted. In an Ad-Hoc network based on the
AODV demand routing algorithm, the request, response and
error messages (RREQ, RREP, RERR) are controlled by
means of variables and flags, included in said messages,
ensuring that there is no redundancy, endless cycles and Figure 1. WSN network with 15 nodes
unnecessary expenditure of resources [19], [20], [18]

The route discovery mechanism is as follows: the packet is

forwarded by all the nodes by which it is received, until the
destination is found. On the way to the destination, the RREQ
informs all intermediate nodes about a route to the source.
When the RREQ arrives at the destination, destination sends a
Route Response packet (RREP) that follows the reverse route
discovered by RREQ. This informs all intermediate nodes
about a route to the destination node. After RREQ and RREP
are delivered to their destination, each intermediate node in the
route knows which node to forward data packets in order to
reach the source or destination. Therefore, data packets do not
need to carry addresses of all intermediate nodes in the route. Figure. 2. WSN network with 30 nodes
It only takes the address of the destination node, decreasing
routing expenses significantly. [21], [18], [16]

Among the fields that make up the request and response

messages (RREQ and RREP) [22], the following are
highlighted:

• Sequence Destination Number: Field that contains a sequence

number of the packets forwarded to the destination, in order to
avoid duplicate packets.
• Precursor list (neighbor list): Contains the IP address of the
direct neighbors of a node.
• Hop counter: Hop counter very used in routing algorithms.
• TTL: Package lifetime.
• Source and destination addresses: IP addresses, version 4.

It is concluded that the AODV protocol allows an efficient data
exchange, in control data exchange applications, with less
expensive nodes and with reduced packet sizes.
IV. ANALYSIS IN THE NS-3 SIMULATOR.
The simulator NS-3, a free simulator for educational and
research use, free of license and available for any platform such
as Linux, Windows, Mac OS, is used [23]. This research work
is used in the Linux platform (Ubuntu) using the NS-3.25
simulator.
Figure. 3. WSN network with 60 nodes
The AODV routing protocol was evaluated by the following
metrics:
• Packages sent, received and lost: Allows analyzing the
impact of control messages on the network. The total number
of control messages sent (RREP, RREQ, RERR) and the total
number of error messages will be analyzed.

2019 14th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI)

19 – 22 June 2019, Coimbra, Portugal
ISBN: 978-989-98434-9-3
• Throughput: This metric is obtained from the average ratio A. Packages sent, received and lost:
of successful deliveries of data packets in a communication
channel. From the results obtained it is observed in fig. 4 the packages
• Package delivery rate (PDF) [%]: Number of data packets increase as the number of nodes in the network grows. Thus,
delivered successfully to the destination node (coordinator) the network with sixty nodes presents higher levels of both sent
divided by the number of packets generated by the source node and received packets.
(other nodes in the network).
• Loss of packets [%]: The percentage of transmitted packets
that are discarded in the network, due to a high error rate in
some of the link means or to exceed the buffer capacity of an
interface in times of congestion.

V. RESULTS.
This part presents the results obtained from each scenario and
checks the metrics obtained when executing the simulations.
Next, the tables of the results obtained from each scenario are
shown.
TABLE I. RESULTS OF THE WSN NETWORK WITH 15 NODES.

Parameters Results Figure. 4 Results of sent, received and lost packets.

Total nodes 15
B. Throughput.
Total Tx Packets 1604
In the fig. 5, it is observed that increasing the number of nodes
Total Rx Packets 395 in the WSN network presents a higher performance, that the
Total Packets Lost 1209 WSN network with sixty nodes presents high levels of energy
consumption.
Throughput 3.29601e-08 Kbps
Packets Loss Ratio 75%
Packets Delivery Ratio 24%

TABLE II. RESULTS OF THE WSN NETWORK WITH 30 NODES .

Parameters Results

Total nodes 30
Total Tx Packets 42895
Total Rx Packets 39708
Total Packets Lost 3187
Throughput 3.45158e-06 Kbps
Figure. 5 Result of throughput in the WSN network.
Packets Loss Ratio 7%
C. Package delivery rate (PDF) [%].
Packets Delivery Ratio 92%
From fig 6, it is observed that in the AODV routing protocol
the packet delivery rate varies according to the number of
nodes, however, as the WSN network increases in data
TABLE III. RESULTS OF THE WSN NETWORK WITH 60 NODES. transmission.
Parameters Results

Total nodes 60
Total Tx Packets 80191
Total Rx Packets 72727
Total Packets Lost 7464
Throughput 6.32239e-06 Kbps
Packets Loss Ratio 9%
Packets Delivery Ratio 90%

Figure. 6 Results of the package delivery rate (PDF).

2019 14th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI)

19 – 22 June 2019, Coimbra, Portugal
ISBN: 978-989-98434-9-3
D. Loss of packets [%].
The packet loss as seen in fig 7, results in the WSN network
with the largest number of nodes obtaining less percentage of
transmitted packets that are discarded in the network,
improving the packet loss rate.
Figure. 7 Result of the packet loss.
VI. CONCLUSION.
This research work evaluates some parameters of the QoS for
performance of the WSN network under the AODV routing
protocol in the NS-3 simulator. It analyzes 4 metrics (packet
sent, received and lost, throughput, Packet Delivery Rate
(PDF) and Loss packets). The evaluation is made for a network
in mesh topology, considering different scenarios (15, 30, 60
nodes), a simulation time of 100 seconds and with a random
uniform distribution.
The results obtained from the simulations can be concluded
that: the AODV routing protocol shows some improvements in
the wireless sensor network, since by increasing the number of
nodes it is possible to find the best route for data transmission
or message flow, not However, it presents a higher
performance, that is, a high energy cost, therefore, with a
reduced life time. As future work, we intend to carry out,
through the simulations, an implementation of the wireless
sensor network located on the campus of the Catholic
University of Santiago de Guayaquil.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was carried out with the support of the research
center (SINDE Subsistema de Investigación y Desarrollo) and
the Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil.
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2019 14th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI)
19 – 22 June 2019, Coimbra, Portugal
ISBN: 978-989-98434-9-3
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2019 14th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI)
19 – 22 June 2019, Coimbra, Portugal
ISBN: 978-989-98434-9-3