Energy-efficient routing protocols for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

The energy depletion is the major drawback in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Sensor nodes use utilize tiny sized batteries, which can neither be replaced nor recharged. Hence, the energy must be optimally maintained in such battery-operated networks. One of the popular method of optimizing the energy efficiency is through clustering. In clustering methodology, all the sensor hubs are assembled into number of groups and each group is allocated with a group head called cluster head (CH). The CH consumes high energy than remaining sensor nodes (SNs) as they are responsible for data collection and data transmission. The cluster heads are usually overloaded with large number of sensing nodes and thereby leads to faster death. Thereby degrades the network execution. In this paper, we propose three different protocols—distributed energy-efficient clustering (DEEC), developed DEEC (DDEEC) and enhanced distributed energy-efficient clustering (E-DEEC). These protocols are compared with energy depletion of cluster head and lifetime. Simulations are carried by considering 500 sensor nodes and 30 cluster heads within a communication range of 200 × 200 m for 10,000 iterations. It is observed that number of nodes alive are 70% more in E-DEEC than DEEC and DDEEC. The packets transmitted to the BS are 80% more in E-DEEC than DEEC and DDEEC. The E-DEEC protocol enhances the network lifetime than DECC and DDEEC.