Routing Algorithm with Uneven Clustering for Energy Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Aiming at the "hotspots" problem in energy heterogeneous wireless sensor networks, a routing algorithm of heterogeneous sensor network with multilevel energies based on uneven clustering is proposed. In this algorithm, the energy heterogeneity of the nodes is fully reflected in the mechanism of cluster-heads' election. It optimizes the competition radius of the cluster-heads according to the residual energy of the nodes. This kind of uneven clustering prolongs the lifetime of the cluster-heads with lower residual energies or near the sink nodes. In data transmission stage, the hybrid multihop transmission mode is adopted, and the next-hop routing election fully takes account of the factors of residual energies and the distances among the nodes. The simulation results show that the introduction of an uneven clustering mechanism and the optimization of competition radius of the cluster-heads significantly prolonged the lifetime of the network and improved the efficiency of data transmission.