In cooperative networks, each node in the routing path recruits the neighboring nodes to transmit and receive the data to assist in communication. It forms a cluster at transmitting and receiving end and then form a transmission link between these two clusters. This paper proposes a new reliable and energy efficient cooperative protocol to establish a cluster at the receiver end, before receiving the data. The end-to-end robustness of the protocol to data-packet loss, along with the tradeoff between energy consumption and error rate is analyzing here. The analysis results are used to compare the end-to-end robustness and energy saving of our new protocol with other two schemes such as one non-cooperative and one another cooperative scheme named as CAN-I. The reduction in error rate and the energy savings translate into increased lifetime of cooperative sensor networks

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