ERAS: Energy-Efficient Routing Strategy with Adaptive Cluster-Head Selection in WSNs

In a wireless sensor network (WSN), sensors close to the sink deplete energy quickly as they relay a large amount of data, causing the energy hole problem. Cluster-based routing is a common solution that groups sensors into clusters and then selects cluster heads (CHs) to route packets. Many cluster-based routing methods consider that sensors are evenly deployed in the sensing field. However, the distribution of sensors may be nonuniform. Some clusters would include many sensors, imposing their CHs with heavy loads and raising packet loss due to buffer overflow. This paper proposes an energy-efficient routing with adaptive CH selection (ERAS) strategy, which divides the sensing field into grids and decides the last grid to the sink. For grids with more sensors, multiple CHs are chosen to share the routing work. The selection of CHs considers sensors’ distribution and remaining energy. Based on the energy status, sensors take turns to serve as CHs to balance their energy consumption. Simulation results reveal that the ERAS strategy can efficiently raise WSN lifetime and diminish packet loss.