The Clustering Algorithm for Enhancing Network Lifetime in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been recently used in many civilian application areas such as environmental monitoring and emergency services. WSNs are considered to be energy constrained. In this paper, we propose a novel clustering algorithm called limiting member node clustering (LmC) algorithm to limit the number of member nodes for each cluster head by using a threshold value. The proposed clustering approach selects a cluster head based on a new cost function which considers the residual battery level, energy consumption and distance to the base station. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can efficiently achieve high number of successfully delivered packets as well as the longest network lifetime while give the shortest delay time when compared with different existing algorithms.