Cluster head selection scheme for data centric wireless sensor networks

Energy efficiency is main design issue for protocols of wireless sensor networks. Node clustering is an energy efficient approach for sensor networks. In clustering algorithms, nodes are grouped into independent clusters and each cluster has a cluster head. Data units gathered at base station depends upon lifetime of network. Cluster head selection is an important issue for energy efficiency of clustering schemes. Intra cluster communication distance depends upon position of cluster head in cluster. In this paper, a new cluster head selection scheme is proposed. Proposed scheme can be implemented with any distributed clustering scheme. In proposed scheme, network area is divided into two parts: border area and inner area. Scheme restricts cluster head selection to only inner area nodes. Scheme is implemented and simulated with LEACH in NS-2. Simulation shows that proposed scheme significantly outperform LEACH for network lifetime and data gathering rate.