Allocation four neighbor exclusive channels to polyhedron clusters in sensor networks

Abstract

In sensor networks, due to the limited resources of sensor nodes, energy efficiency is an important issue. Clustering reduces communication between sensor nodes and improves energy efficiency by transmitting the data collected from cluster members by a cluster header to a sink node. Due to the frequency characteristics in a wireless communication environment, interference and collision may occur between neighboring clusters, which may lead causing network overhead and increasing energy consumption due to the resulting re-transmission. Inter-cluster interference and collisions can be resolved by allocating non-overlapping channels between neighboring clusters. In our previous study, a channel allocation algorithm is proposed. It allocates exclusive channels among neighbor clusters in various polygonal cluster networks. But, we have found that channel collision occurs among neighbor clusters in the process of applying the algorithm in complex cluster topologies. In order to complete the non-collision channel allocation, a straightforward algorithm which has not completed in the previous studies is proposed. We provide 4 rules for proving the proposed algorithm has no weakness. The result of experiment shows that our proposed algorithm successfully allocates exclusive channels between neighboring clusters using only 4 channels in a very complex cluster topology environment.