An improvement for LEACH algorithm in wireless sensor network

As a representative of hierarchy-based protocol in wireless sensor network, LEACH is an elegant solution for energy efficiency. However, LEACH still have some deficiencies such as 1) some very big clusters and very small clusters may exist in the network at the same time; 2) unreasonable cluster head selection while the nodes have different energy; 3) cluster member nodes deplete energy after cluster head was dead. In this paper, we propose a new energy-efficient LEACH-based protocol that employs cluster member threshold to avoid the very big cluster and the very small cluster existing at the same time; use energy rating to avoid uneven energy distribution; and use energy estimate to avoid unnecessary energy consumption of cluster members. Analysis and simulation results show that our proposed algorithm provides more uniform energy consumption among nodes and can prolong network lifetime compared to LEACH.