An Energy Balance-Oriented Clustering Routing Protocol for Cognitive Radio Sensor Networks

Uneven clustering is an effective solution to solve the energy hole problem in multihop cognitive radio sensor networks (CRSNs). However, current literature leaves control overhead and multihop intercluster routing out of consideration and adopts constant weight coefficients for cluster radius calculation instead of reasonably setting their values according to specific network configurations. To solve the above problems, a distributed energy balance-oriented uneven clustering routing protocol (EBUCRP) is proposed in this article. First, by fully considering the energy consumption of control information exchange and data transmission, EBUCRP theoretically derives the optimal cluster radius of each unit within which distributed clusters are formed. Second, communication capability-based selection criteria are defined from joint energy and spectral efficiency perspectives to help select high-quality cluster heads and next-hop relays. In this case, the monitoring information can be transferred to the sink through efficient intracluster data aggregation and intercluster multihop forwarding. Third, EBUCRP strictly restricts the energy consumption of control information exchange during network operation. Simulation results show that EBUCRP gains obvious advantages over competing protocols in enhancing the lifetime and supervision capability of both single-hop and multihop CRSNs.