Dynamic Threshold-Based Distance-Aware Clustering for Stable and Energy-Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks (DT-DAC)

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks consist of numerous tiny sensor nodes and have gained widespread acceptance because of their diverse applications in the real world. It has critical role in military operations, forest fire detection, environmental monitoring, healthcare and precision agriculture. Sensor node’s life is dependent on its battery. For extending network lifetime, energy efficient routing is essential. Replacement of battery cannot be possible in many cases. Therefore, reducing energy usage is a key design issue for WSNs. The primary goal of routing protocols is to reduce consumption of energy and maximize the network lifetime.  Studies already conducted show that the overhead associated with frequent rotation of cluster heads and clustering processes lead to considerable energy usage. After evaluating a variety of current energy efficient routing approaches, a method is proposed that uses optimize the number of cluster heads and perform clustering just once during network initialization. Proposed approach eliminates the energy and time costs related to re-clustering. Instead of replacing the CHs in every round, proposed approach replaces CHs only when their energy drops below a certain level. CHs are selected based on how close they are to the cluster center and the highest remaining energy. Experimental results indicate that presented methodology outperforms traditional approaches in terms of lifetime of the network.