Energy-Efficient Routing Protocols in IoT Networks: A Narrative Review and Comparative Simulation Study
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The battery life of IoT sensors is often the limiting factor, and the choice of routing protocol directly affects how quickly nodes deplete their power. Although many protocols have been proposed, published results use disparate configurations and cannot be compared directly. This paper accomplishes two objectives. First, we give a narrative review of six protocol families: hierarchical, flat, location-based, multipath, QoS- or standard-based, and learning-based. Second, we use the first-order radio energy model of Heinzelman et al. to build an open-source Python/NumPy simulator and run a side-by-side comparison of six reference protocols: FLAT, LEACH, EWC (inspired by HEED), PEGASIS, SSPT (inspired by RPL), and QL-F (a minimal baseline Q-learning implementation included for comparison only). In a 100 × 100 m field with 100 nodes and a central sink, QL-F achieves the longest first-node-death time (1411.1 ± 45.1 rounds), followed by FLAT (1333.9 ± 47.3). A dedicated sink-placement study shows that, across the five positions tested, FLAT loses 65% of its lifetime when the sink moves to a corner, whereas QL-F's first-node-death time stays within 5% of its central-sink value — a robustness aspect that standard evaluations overlook. The simulator is released under an open-source licence to support reproducibility.
Source: Research Square
Authors: Mohammad Haribat, Ahmad Kayed
Institution: Sohar University
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Sohar University
OpenAlex ID: W7160453078