Extending the network lifetime of wireless sensor networks using fuzzy logic

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) present a realtime embedded system with limited energy, computation and memory resources that are being used in a wide variety of applications. In designing WSN routing protocol, the enhancing energy efficiency and extending the lifetime of WSNs are the most important challenges for researchers. In LEACH protocol each sensor node elects itself as a cluster head based on a probability model. Selected cluster heads may be located near to each others or even near to the edge of the networks which leads to inefficient energy distribution. Almost researches are to conserve energy at its maximum level. In this paper, a fuzzy logic approach to cluster-head election is proposed based on three descriptors — energy, distance to coordinator and density. Simulation shows that depending upon network configuration, a substantial increase in network lifetime can be accomplished as compared to probabilistically selecting the nodes as cluster-heads using only local information.