An energy efficient uneven grid clustering based routing protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy conservation and load balancing of the sensor nodes are the important issues considered in the design of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). By using clustering approach, the energy consumption of nodes in the network can be decreased thereby increasing its lifetime. In various multi-hop cluster-based routing protocols, nodes nearer to the Base Station (BS) exhaust their energy quickly than other nodes as data from the entire network is forwarded to BS through them. Due to this, nearby nodes die sooner and network get partitioned. This is known as hot spot problem. This paper proposes an energy efficient uneven grid clustering based routing (EEUGCR) protocol for larger network area. The proposed protocol is based on the centralized approach which uses fixed clustering. In this protocol, the BS divides the whole network into fixed rectangular shaped clusters of unequal size. The size of the cluster is dependent on its distance from the BS. To overcome from more energy loss at the clusters nearer to the BS due to more data handling, proposed protocol introduces unequal size grid clustering approach. It also ensures that the transmission distance for any communication in the network is less than the threshold distance of the energy consumption model. It also increases load balancing in terms of energy consumption and data traffic. It can provide better solution to hot spot problem and hence can improve network lifetime with respect to other existing routing protocols.