Optimization of Clustering Techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

A wireless sensor network consists of a large number of small devices called sensors having low-power transceivers that can be an effective tool for gathering data from a particular or variety of environments. Collected data determining the characteristics of particular environment is sent to the data processing center called Base Station. As sensor nodes having limited resources ,the path for communication between sensor node and Base Station should be chosen such that total energy consumed along that path is minimized. Sensor nodes are grouped into clusters for high scalability and better data aggregation. Clusters create hierarchical WSNs which incorporate efficient utilization of limited resources of sensor nodes. Objective of this project is to implement a cluster-head election technique that will optimize network lifetime or energy consumption. LEACH and LEACH-C are clustering protocol and they provide energy efficient routing. So our focus will be totally towards optimizing LEACH-C protocol to achieve better network lifetime and/or Energy consumption. For that we have done implementation in LEACH- C protocol for the approaches given in this thesis. We have included Shadowing: A realistic radio model in LEACH-C. Our algorithm follows different clusterhead selection technique than LEACH-C. It selects optimal number of clusterheads in each round and also forms better clusters. Hence it consumes less energy and enlarges network lifetime.