REERP: A Region-Based Energy-Efficient Routing Protocol for IoT Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

An essential component of the Internet of Things (IoT) is wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Since individual sensor nodes are strongly power-constrained, several techniques are adopted to save power. By grouping nodes into clusters—thus reducing the transmission distance between sensor nodes and the base station (BS)—a clustering protocol can ensure energy preservation and increase the lifetime of the network. However, current clustering techniques have problems with the clustering structure that negatively impact their performance. Whenever routing protocols were implemented for a longer period of time, it was observed that they had a higher rate of energy consumption, a shorter period of stability, and fewer data transfers to the BS. In this paper, an improved region-based routing protocol (REERP) is developed for wireless sensor networks in the IoT is developed. It is based on (i) the addition of new nodes to the already formed clusters, (ii) the selection of the new head node based on the amount of residual energy, (iii) the setup of the multi-hop communication in all the regions of network, and (iv) the utilization of the energy hole reduction method. All of these tactics increase the useful life of the network. Performance has been evaluated against (1) a stable election protocol, (2) a gateway energy-aware routing protocol, and (3) a heterogeneous gateway energy-aware routing protocol, and using the metrics lifetime, energy consumption, number of dead nodes, and number of packets sent to the base station vs. number of packets acquired by the base station. The results of the proposed routing protocol have been found to outperform the state-of-the-art approaches considered.