A New Proposed Clustering Method for Energy Efficient Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks, have found plenty of applications, nowadays. Due to the presence of tiny and restricted batteries in these little sensors, deployment of a power-efficient routing protocol is a must. Between all the already-proposed routing protocols, the hierarchical ones are more efficient in energy conservation than flat routing protocols. In order to decrease energy consumption and increase the network lifetime, we proposed a new hierarchical routing protocol, by dividing the network area to sectors and two levels and choosing Cluster Heads from the lower level, which is more near to the Base Station. In order to minimize the reverse flow of the data from BS, we use a tree structure in each sector. In addition, the frontier between two levels can be moved during network lifetime and having dead nodes. The results of simulations show that our proposed TSBC protocol outperforms LEACH, Multi-Hop LEACH and many other conventional routing protocols in energy conservation and in network lifetime. One of the most important properties of our scheme that can distinguish it from any other scheme is reverse flow from BS cancellation or at least deduction. The special formula, which is used in our protocol for CH selection, in order to prevent battery depletion in a special spot, can also be adapted to any other hierarchical clustering protocols to achieve higher energy-efficiency. It is still noteworthy to mention that thanks to devising special measures we highly prevent fragmentation occurrence in routing process in the network.