A multi-hop routing protocol for an energy-efficient in wireless sensor network

Abstract

The low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) protocol has been developed to be implemented in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) systems such as healthcare and military systems. LEACH protocol depends on clustering the employed sensors and electing one cluster head (CH) for each cluster. The CH nodes are changed periodically to evenly distribute the energy load among sensors. Updating the CH node requires electing different CH and re-clustering sensors. This process consumes sensors’ energy due to sending and receiving many broadcast and unicast messages thus reduces the network lifetime, which is regarded as a significant issue in LEACH. This research develops a new approach based on modifying the LEACH protocol to minimize the need of updating the cluster head. The proposal aims to extend the WSN’s lifetime by maintaining the sensor nodes’ energy. The suggested approach has been evaluated and shown remarkable efficiency in comparison with basic LEACH protocol and not-clustered protocol in terms of extending network lifetime and reducing the required sent messages in the network reflected by 15%, and, in addition, reducing the need to reformatting the clusters frequently and saving network resources.