GRCS: A cluster-based geographic routing protocol for WSNs

Abstract

In this paper, a new geographic routing protocol based on the clustering mechanism is proposed with the goal of enhancing the energy conservation and degree of success to reach the destination. The proposed protocol, called GRCS, use the positions information of neighboring nodes to communicate the collected data to the destination. In fact, the routing decision in geographic routing protocols is based on the locations information of the destination and the forwarding nodes. Besides, that the communicated data in GRCS are assisted by the locations information of neighboring nodes, the clustering mechanism is introduced in the routing process to optimize the path to the destination dynamically. To achieve this, the network is organized into a set of clusters where a cluster-head (CH) is periodically elected for each duster. Hence, the CHs will determinate the nearest nodes to forward the data to the destination and consequently, this will makes the energy consumption more balanced. Further, GRCS mix three strategies of routing to be used in the process of forwarding data to the destination. Simulation results in J-sim shows that GRCS, when compared to the GPSR protocol, presents less energy consumption and thus achieves an obvious improvement on the network lifetime and better packets delivery ratio.