Energy-efficient Multi-hop Routing with Unequal Clustering Approach for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

The development of an energy-efficient routing protocol, capable of extending the life of the network, is one of the main constraints of wireless sensor networks (WSN). Research studies on WSN routing prove that clustering offers an effective approach to prolong the lifetime of a WSN, particularly when it is combined with multi-hop communication that can reduces energy costs by minimizing the distance between transmitter and receiver. Most clustering algorithms using multi-hop in data transmission encounter the hotspot problem. In this work, an Energy-efficient Multi-hop routing with Unequal Clustering approach (EMUC) is proposed, to create clusters of different sizes, which depend on the distance between the sensor node and the base station. Equilibrate the energy dissipation between the cluster heads is the purpose of this approach by adopting multi-hop communication to relay data to the base station. The implementation of multi-hop mode to transmit data to the base station reduces the energy cost of transmission over long distances. The effectiveness of this approach is validated through performed simulations, which prove that EMUC balances energy consumption between sensor nodes, mitigates the hotspots problem, saves more energy and significantly extends the network lifetime.