Clustering the Wireless Sensor Networks: A Meta-Heuristic Approach

Lifetime is one of the most critical indexes of the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). In this paper, we propose a clustering protocol based on the meta-heuristic approach (CPMA). CPMA takes the network lifetime as the primary consideration and consists of two parts. The first part focuses on the online cluster head selection and network communication coordination. The selection is based on the Harmony Search (HS) Algorithm, which aims to reduce the total energy dissipation and smooth the energy distribution throughout the network. Currently, most clustering protocols cannot automatically tune the corresponding protocol parameters according to the diversity of different WSNs. To solve such issue, the second part of CPMA uses the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm to optimize its crucial parameters. The optimization is offline and will be executed only once before the network is working. We make a detailed comparison of CPMA with classical clustering protocols. The results show that CPMA can better prolong the network lifetime and improve network throughput under almost all the network conditions. Furthermore, our simulation also exhibits that CPMA has good adaptability and performs well under different network lifetime definitions. All the results prove that CPMA has the advantages of being suitable and efficient for a wide number of WSN applications.