FZCP: A Fixed Zone Clustering Protocol Based on Residual Energy and Nodes Distribution in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

To balance energy load is a key point in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). LEACH, a popular energy-efficient protocol in WSN, manages the operation of network based on clustering algorithm. Since all of the nodes have the same probability to become cluster heads, it can not be used in heterogeneous WSNs (HWSNs). Several other methods, such as SEP, DEEC and EDFM have been proposed in literatures. In this paper we propose a new protocol, Fixed Zone Clustering Protocol (FZCP), which is also based on clustering, but it is different from above protocols. In our protocol the zones of clusters are determined in advanced and cluster heads are elected based on residual energy and expected energy cost. Each cluster has only one cluster head. Simulations show that FZCP can put off the dead time of first node by about 11%, 38% and 156% compared with EDFM, SEP and LEACH.