Path Quality Aware Energy Efficient Technique to Increase Packet Delivery Ratio in the Internet of Things

Objectives: The key objectives are to enhance the performance of Internet of Things (IoT) networks to attain a high packet delivery ratio (PDR), efficient residual energy (RE) usage, minimum energy consumption, and decrease packet loss during data transmission. Performance metrics are used to discover and choose high, top-notch, and long-living paths, increasing network lifetime and optimizing resource management by preventing the participation of non-essential nodes and inefficient paths in the network routing process. Methods: To devise an energy-efficient technique and refine it with decision-making for selecting an optimal path, which employs a composite metric path quality index (PQI) to enhance path quality, comprising RE for priority of nodes with maximum remaining energy, link quality score (LQS), packet delivery ratio (PDR) and hop count (HC) to minimize the path length must be integrated into the routing process to make data transmission more efficient. Hence, intermediate nodes ensure path quality, determine if packet flow is good or bad, eliminate unnecessary nodes, and optimize the whole routing by deciding on a path. The proposed technique simulates IoT network scenarios in which nodes dynamically compute these metrics and select optimal paths for transmitting data to the sink node. Findings: The proposed technique achieves a much higher PDR and an energy-proficient routing mechanism by balancing the quality of the optimal path, the residual energy, and the number of hops, which can not only prolong the network lifetime but also ensures that resources are being used efficiently, in turn all leading to a better network performance than existing methods. Simulation results show that the proposed technique significantly improves the PDR over the existing methods and reduces overall energy consumption. In this work, the validated results show that metrics PQI, RE, LQS, and HC collectively improve data delivery and ensure higher survivability of the network by optimizing the path choosing and eliminating the unnecessary nodes from the source to the target. The proposed technique simulation showed a 32.15% increase in network RE and a 36.44% improvement in PDR. Novelty: The technique presented in this paper introduces a routing approach designed with the unique integration of RE, LQS, PDR, and HC, deriving PQI metric, which will improve the path selection in IoT networks. Unlike existing methods, this method considers energy efficiency, path quality instead of link quality, and path length together to avoid over-utilizing energy-draining nodes while favoring stable, efficient paths. The approach fills a gap in existing IoT environments by focusing on energy-wise efficiency and path reliability and reducing the number of nodes unnecessarily concerned with the dynamic optimal path selection. As IoT deployments increase, so does the need for energy-efficient data transmission, and the proposed technique supports the sustainability of IoT networks. Keywords: Energy Efficiency, Path Quality Indicator, Residual Energy, Hop Count, Quality of Service