Heterogeneous load balancing clustering protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks is one of the most significant area of research where large number of sensor nodes that are distributed in a geographical area operate on limited battery power. As these networks, depending on the application, are sometimes deployed in in-hostile environment, which makes energy conservation one of the major challenge faced in WSN. To reduce energy consumption, clustering is considered to be the most efficient technique. This work proposes a new clustering approach that decreases energy consumption and results in prolonged network lifetime which is an important requirement for networks operating in inaccessible areas. In the proposed approach, heterogeneity is also implemented to increase the stability and energy efficiency of random networks. We have evaluated the efficiency of the proposed protocol through simulations and comparison is performed with well-known existing distributed protocols. Proposed approach shows efficient results in terms of the stability period for different network configurations and Base Station positions. Also, the results are found better in terms of number of alive nodes and network lifetime.