An energy-efficient unequal clustering mechanism for wireless sensor networks

Clustering provides an effective way for prolonging the lifetime of a wireless sensor network. Current clustering algorithms usually utilize two techniques, selecting cluster heads with more residual energy and rotating cluster heads periodically, to distribute the energy consumption among nodes in each cluster and extend the network lifetime. However, they rarely consider the hot spots problem in multihop wireless sensor networks. When cluster heads cooperate with each other to forward their data to the base station, the cluster heads closer to the base station are burdened with heavy relay traffic and tend to die early, leaving areas of the network uncovered and causing network partition. To address the…

• NS
  National Science Foundation