AN ENERGY-EFFICIENT ADAPTIVE CLUSTERING ALGORITHM FOR WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

Abstract

In this paper, we consider a network of energy constrained sensors deployed over a region. Each sensor node in such a network is systematically gathering and transmitting sensed data to a base station (via clusterheads). This paper focuses on reducing the power consumption of wireless sensor networks. We first extend LEACH's stochastic clusterhead selection algorithm by an average energy-based (LEACH-AE) deterministic component to reduce energy consumption. And then an unequal clustering idea is introduced to further reduce energy consumption of clusterheads. Simulation results show that our modified scheme can extend the network life by up to 38% before the first node dies in the network. Through both theoretical analysis and numerical results, it is shown that the proposed algorithm achieves better performance than the existing clustering algorithms such as LEACH, DCHS, LEACH-C.