Energy-efficient routing based on directional antennas for wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we proposed an energy-efficient clustering routing algorithm based on directional antennas (EECDA) for wireless sensor networks. In a large scene, a cluster-head is responsible for data acquisition within its cluster and data forwarding among different clusters. As the sensor nodes are too simple and the energy providing is limited, the energy will be quickly run out with the increase of the amount of round. The joining of directional antennas can reduce the interference in network, minimize the unnecessary sending energy consumption, and extend the lifetime of the network. Modeling and simulating of EECDA on the OPNET simulator platform, we get the quantitative results that reflect the performance and effectiveness of our proposed algorithm.