Energy and Distance Aware Distributed Dynamic Clustering Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of a large number of low-power sensor nodes capable of self-organizing to perform real-time monitoring and data collection of the environment. However, the energy constraints and limited battery life of these sensor nodes have long been a key challenge in this field. To address this issue, many solutions have been proposed, with clustering-based routing protocols being widely adopted as an effective method for reducing energy consumption. Additionally, the heterogeneity of the network plays a critical role in extending network lifetime. In this paper, we propose an Energy and Distance Aware Distributed Dynamic Clustering protocol (EDAD) for heterogeneous WSNs to management the network and reduce the energy consumption involved in data transmission, thereby extending the network’s lifespan. The protocol considers both the residual energy of nodes and their distance to the base station (BS) in the cluster head (CH) selection process. Moreover, EDAD adjusts the frequency of nodes serving as CHs to prevent certain nodes from exhausting their energy prematurely due to frequent CH responsibilities. Simulation results show that EDAD significantly outperforms existing clustering protocols in terms of node energy consumption, network lifetime, and throughput.