Bounded degree energy aware topology discovery in ad hoc wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we present a strategy for topology discovery and reconfiguration in ad hoc wireless sensor networks. One of the most critical issues in designing a wireless sensor network is to optimize the number of cluster heads which consume more energy as compared to the ordinary nodes. In this paper, we briefly analyze the currently proposed topology discovery algorithms and then propose our algorithm called bounded degree energy aware algorithm (BDEA) which elects cluster heads by weighted clustering approach. The proposed algorithm takes in to consideration the degree, energy, transmission range and mobility of a node. Load balancing is achieved by setting lower and upper bounds on the degree of a node for becoming a cluster head. Communication cost is reduced by declaring some nodes as forwarding nodes. Energy is also conserved by setting a threshold on the amount of energy a node requires to become a cluster head. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our proposed scheme using simulations. Performance is evaluated in terms of number of cluster heads, load balancing, reconfigurations, stability of clusters and network lifetime. Simulations show that BDEA has stability over varying transmission ranges. BDEA has a higher degree of load balancing and a longer network lifetime as compared to previously proposed topology discovery algorithms.