Threshold driven energy-efficient and scalable dual cluster head protocol

Abstract

In WSN cluster-based routing approach is a major step in the direction of energy efficiency. However, research shows that energy dissipation in a cluster-based approach predominantly occurs in two cases; first during data transmission to the base station and second during data fusion/aggregation. Eventually, this leads to sizable energy dissipation, the early death of CHs and results in lower network lifetime. Moreover, in most of the recent proposed works, it is never assured that an individual node selected as a Cluster-Head would perform all the assigned tasks without dying in the process. Thus to address these problems, a new approach is proposed in this paper, where two cluster-heads (CHs) in every cluster are selected; first cluster-head being used for data aggregation (Primary-CH) and second for data transmission (Secondary-CH), which assists in reducing the burden of a single Cluster Head. Along with the dual Cluster-Heads, another key feature adopted in this paper is the Energy Threshold values for PCH and SCH. These Energy Thresholds for different CHs calculates the minimum energy required by a node to perform all the tasks assigned to it when elected as CH. So, while electing Primary Cluster-Head (PCH) and Secondary Cluster-Head (SCH) along with other criterions energy threshold values for PCH (EPO) and energy threshold values for SCH (ESO) are also used. Any node with remaining energy less than that of energy thresholds would never be considered for Cluster-Heads. Therefore, by employing the above-mentioned criterions, this article proposes a new protocol that uses dual heads and assists in enhancing the network life of a network as compared to LEACH protocol.