Influence of the cluster head position on the lifetime of wireless sensor network — A case study

Clustering is an important technique that helps in reducing the network energy consumption. The Cluster Head (CH) usually performs data fusion, aggregation and communication of the aggregated data to the Base Station. As the CHs communicate with the Base Stations located at larger distances than the member nodes, they generally consume more energy. This leads to energy drainage of CHs at a faster rate than the member nodes. This is overcome by re-electing new CHs at periodic intervals to balance the energy consumption among all the nodes in the network. Many CH reselection techniques based on various factors are proposed in the literature. Yet, experimentally these proposals are not validated. Hence, to validate the basis of CH selection, experiments using ZigBee motes is conducted in real time. Experiments are carried out by choosing nodes at different positions from the base Station as CH. The Inter and Intra energy consumption is calculated and presented. The experimental studies reveal that the centroid or close to centroid is the optimal position of the CH. Thus the optimal location of CH helps in minimizing the energy consumption which in turn increases the lifetime of the network.