Improved Clustering Routing Protocol for Low-Energy Adaptive Cluster-Based Routing in Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

Advancement in wireless sensor network (WSN) technology and sensor instrumentation has contributed to the development of novel protocols which are designed specifically for WSN, where conservation of energy is of utmost importance. Though, the performance of the clusterbased routing protocols is limited by problems related to determining an accurate and energyefficient radio model for the sensor nodes in the network. A number of radio models have been proposed to improve the performance of WSN clustering routing protocols but the basic assumptions and inaccurate configuration of these radio models make them ineffective and most time lead to poor utilization of the limited energy and computational resources. This paper addresses this challenge by proposing an improved radio model that incorporates specialized data transmission schemes, stepwise energy level and capable of adapting to frequent changes in the position of the motes without hindering the reliability of the data transmission to the sink, despite fluctuations due to signal interference. The proposed radio model was incorporated into the Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocol and called LEACH-IMP. The proposed LEACH-IMP shows a better performance in terms of the energy consumption, number of packets received, signal interference and network lifetime when compared to LEACH routing protocol.