Unequal clustering data gathering algorithm based on ring in uniform distribution of nodes in wireless sensor networks

Periodical clustering data gathering algorithm in each round is mainly divided into two stages of cluster structure establishment and data transmission. In each round, the network need reestablish the cluster structure and periodically change the cluster heads to balance the energy consumption of the network. However, rebuilding the cluster structure requires a large amount of message exchange, which leads to an excessive increase of energy consumption. Especially, with the increase of the size of WSN, the message cost of rebuilding the cluster structure also increases. In this paper, we propose an unequal clustering data gathering algorithm based on ring (UCDGAR) to resolve the problem of excessive energy consumption caused by the periodic reconfiguration of unequal clusters in large-scale data gathering with uniform distribution of nodes. Firstly, UCDGAR obtains the clustering parameters when the network energy consumption is the minimum by theoretical calculation. Furthermore, the unequal cluster structure is established by these clustering parameters. Finally, we explore a cluster head rotation algorithm by which the cluster head roles are periodically rotated without rebuilding. This can effectively reduce the energy consumption and prolong the network lifetime.