Dynamic Clustering Protocol for Data Forwarding in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Energy being the very key concern area with sensor networks, so the main focus lies in developing a mechanism to increase the lifetime of a sensor network by energy balancing. To achieve energy balancing and maximizing network lifetime we use an idea of clustering and dividing the whole network into different clusters. In this paper we propose a dynamic cluster formation method where clusters are refreshed periodically based on residual energy, distance and cost. Refreshing clustering minimizes workload of any single node and in turn enhances the energy conservation. Sleep and wait methodology is applied to the proposed protocol to enhance the network lifetime by turning the nodes on and off according to their duties. The node that has some data to be transmitted is in on state and after forwarding its data to the cluster head it changes its state to off which saves the energy of entire network. Simulations have been done using MAT lab. Simulation results prove the betterment of our proposed method over the existing Leach protocol.