Gateway and Cluster Head Election using Fuzzy Logic in heterogeneous wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor nodes are resource constrained and have limited amount of energy. Therefore, designing protocols that conserve energy is an important area of research. Researchers have investigated architectures and topologies that allow energy efficient operation of WSNs. One of the popular techniques in this regard is clustering. The different methods of node clustering techniques have appeared in the literature. In this paper, we propose a new protocol called Gateway and Cluster Head Election using Fuzzy Logic in heterogeneous wireless sensor networks (GCHE-FL), this protocol uses two election fuzzy logic to evaluate the chance of sensors to become gateway and cluster head. In the first election (Gateway Election), the qualified nodes are selected based on their energy and proximity to base station. Then, in the second election (Cluster Head Election), two fuzzy parameters are used. These parameters are efficiency which is the ratio between residual energy of each node and the average energy of the cluster, and Cluster_Distance which is the sum of distances between the node and the others nodes which is within cluster. Simulation results show that the proposed approach consumes less energy and prolongs the network life time compared with other protocols.