Energy efficient algorithms to maximize lifetime of wireless sensor networks

In a wireless sensor network (WSN), all the sensor nodes (SNs) are severely energy constrained. Therefore, maximizing lifetime of the network is determined as the main objective in designing algorithms. In many applications of WSN, the SNs closer to the base station (sink) are overburdened as they are responsible for relaying data of the entire region to sink. Consequently, the energy of the SNs gets depleted very fast which leads to network partitioning. This phenomenon is usually called as energy hole or hotspot problem. In this paper, unequal clustering and routing algorithm is presented by considering efficient use of residual energy of the SNs as a solution for the hotspot problem. The algorithms are tested with various cases of WSN along with some existing algorithms to show the efficacy of the proposed algorithms by considering various performance metrics.