An energy-efficient routing algorithm for data gathering in wireless sensor networks

Data gathering is a basic function in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). With the energy constrained nature of the wireless sensor nodes, energy-efficient routing algorithms need to be carefully designed before wireless sensor networks are widely deployed for data gathering. This article proposed an energy-efficient cluster routing algorithm (ECRA) for data gathering in wireless sensor networks. Firstly, ECRA divided the nodes in WSNs into clusters. Secondly, a chain was formed in each by an improved nearest neighbor algorithm. Finally, the multi-hop was used to transmit the gathered data from clusterhead to the base station. The simulation results show that the proposed approach can distribute energy consumption uniformly among the sensor nodes, and thus prolong the network lifetime.