An Energy-Efficient Clustering Algorithm for Edge-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

To employee clustering algorithms in multi-hop data forwarding mechanism, Hot-spot problem will cause unbalanced energy dissipation among the cluster heads in the network. Unequal clustering technique promotes even energy dissipation only in inter-cluster communications not in intra-cluster communication. An Energy-efficient Clustering Algorithm (EECA) is introduced to avoid these problems in edge-based wireless sensor networks. The main aim of the presented algorithm is to avoid hot-spot problem by balancing uniform energy utilization among networked cluster heads. EECA constructs uneven size clusters in different levels to enable uniform energy expenditure among cluster heads. Data delivery is one of the important and unavoidable energy consuming operation in any sensor networks. To balance energy consumption load among data transmission routes, a multi-hop data forwarding protocol is introduced. Here, source node selects a relaying node who has minimum hop count to base station with more energy reserves and relayed less number of packets. Extensive experimental results prove that the presented algorithm overcome the congestion problem in the network by uniform distribution of energy consumption and enhances network's lifetime.