Multi-Layer Support based Clustering for Energy-Hole Prevention and Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

In Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), a key technique to improve the network lifetime is clustering. Clustering approach divides sensors into multiple clusters consisting one cluster head and cluster members. An energy-efficient clustering protocol is a major concern for reporting sensory data to the sink node. The main issue in clustering protocol is to select appropriate nodes to act as cluster heads and gateways for routing. The existing works consider a single factor in the cluster head selection and routing approach. However, considering only a single metric fails to expose the influence of other factors. This paper proposes a CLUstering protocol for an Energy-HOle Preventive Environment (CLUE-HOPE) called CLUE-HOPE. The CLUE-HOPE divides the network into virtual grids in a distributed manner. In order to reduce the irregularity in cluster head placements, CLUE-HOPE allows the cluster to adjust its size by handling the sensors from and to the neighbor grids. Moreover, it spins the role of cluster head among the cluster members in a distributed manner, and thus it achieves evenly distributed energy load among sensors. A Greedy based Cluster-Head Coordinated Routing (GCCR) is proposed which connects multiple clusters via gateways in a greedy manner and forwards the sensor data to the sink node. The Bit Error Rate (BER) in a received signal of a sensor is directly proportional to the transmission distance. Even though, BER increases in GCCR due to high traffic in the network layer, CLUE-HOPE employs SMAC and, RS and DSSS coded with a non-coherent M-FSK scheme at the lower layers to improve routing performance. Finally, the simulation results reveal that the proposed CLUE-HOPE appreciably improves the clustering performance.