Impact of Modulated Routing Mechanism on Wireless Sensor Network Systems: A Comprehensive Analysis

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been hugely advanced in recent years, driven by the growth of equipment types and numbers and the reduction of cost. Various services have been provided based on application requirements and network services. Among the energy-saving solutions in WSN environments, the Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) mechanism stands out. This hierarchical protocol makes cluster heads aggregate and switches data sent by the cluster entity nodes toward a fixed Sink node. In this study, we proposed Cost Balanced LEACH (CBLEACH), a novel set of routing mechanisms that introduce the mobility aspect to the Sink node (SN) and balances the decision of cluster head (CH) election by considering the distances between nodes and the residual energy of expected CH candidates. CB-LEACH allows nodes to be close to the SN to transmit data directly, ensuring non-collapsing energy and achieving the greatest efficiency in the WSN. The functionalities and features of the CB-LEACH routing mechanism were explored to provide valuable insights for researchers and practitioners in WSNs. We introduced a balance factor variable that merged the two impacting and time-dependent properties of nodes: distance and energy. The CH election in each cluster was based on a cost rule derived from a linear Eq. of the balance factor. We presented four different modulation schemes for the balance factor, each with its own rule, and analyzed their impact on the CB-LEACH mechanism. We examined the system's functionalities and compared the lifetime and transmitted number of frames in different scenarios involving the epoch number, the speed of SN, and various systems including Direct Sequence, basic LEACH, enhanced LEACH with mobile SN, and CB-LEACH. The findings in this study demonstrated that the modulated CB-LEACH routing mechanism outperformed other routing cases, offering superior features and capabilities to the WSNs.