An efficient low-delay routing algorithin,name epidemic routing based on cross-layer encountered-node sens-ing (ERCES)was proposed to address the issue that the epidemic-based routing algorithms have some extralatency in sensing encountered nodes and extra overhead in exchanging data packets.ERCES achieves to speed sensing encountered nodes through cross-layer design among the PHY,MAC,and network layers.Moreover,to reduce overhead and to de-crease data latency,it makes a node send novel data packet immediately after encountering other nodes,sends the packets close-by their destinations firstly after receiving summary vector(SV)packets,adaptively varies the period of HELLO packets and deletes the packets reaching their destinations from nodes' memory with the help of SVs.Theoretical anal-,ysis verifies the effectiveness of ERCES.And simulation results show that ERCES reduces by at least 11.3% the control overhead by at least 8.2%,2.1% memory overhead by more than 2.1%,and the average end-to-end delay by at least 11.3%.