Optimizing Routing Protocol Design for Long-Range Distributed Multi-Hop Networks

The advancement of communication technologies has facilitated the deployment of numerous sensors, terminal human–machine interfaces, and smart devices in various complex environments for data collection and analysis, providing automated and intelligent services. The increasing urgency of monitoring demands in complex environments necessitates low-cost and efficient network deployment solutions to support various monitoring tasks. Distributed networks offer high stability, reliability, and economic feasibility. Among various Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) technologies, Long Range (LoRa) has emerged as the preferred choice due to its openness and flexibility. However, traditional LoRa networks face challenges such as limited coverage range and poor scalability, emphasizing the need for research into distributed routing strategies tailored for LoRa networks. This paper proposes the Optimizing Link-State Routing Based on Load Balancing (LB-OLSR) protocol as an ideal approach for constructing LoRa distributed multi-hop networks. The protocol considers the selection of Multipoint Relay (MPR) nodes to reduce unnecessary network overhead. In addition, route planning integrates factors such as business communication latency, link reliability, node occupancy rate, and node load rate to construct an optimization model and optimize the route establishment decision criteria through a load-balancing approach. The simulation results demonstrate that the improved routing protocol exhibits superior performance in node load balancing, average node load duration, and average business latency.