Clustering methodology to prolong lifetime in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor network (WSN) is a low-powered network formed by the sensor nodes that finds application in civilian, military, visual sense models and many others. Improved network lifetime is an important task to be achieved by these sensor networks. The conservative routing protocols cannot be applied here due to its battery powered nodes. To provision energy efficiency, nodes are frequently clustered in to non-overlapping clusters. This paper gives a brief overview on clustering process in wireless sensor networks. A hybrid energy efficient distributed clustering methodology for dense wireless sensor networks, the Capacity based Clustering Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (CC-LEACH) has been proposed and the results have been evaluated against the existing Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) clustering methodology. Simulation results clearly show an excellent improvement in throughput, packet delivery ratio and number of packets received at the base station. Also, the proposed clustering methodology show a reduction in packet drop, energy consumption and end to end latency for dense wireless sensor networks.