WSN lifetime elongation via hybrid routing

Wireless sensor networks is one of the most promising elements of the Internet-of-Things. Faced with many challenges, energy dissipation and lifetime are among the main performance metrics that require improvement. In this paper, a new hybrid routing protocol is proposed to elongate the lifetime of a sensor network. The proposed hybrid protocol overcomes the LEACH-C shortcomings and exploits the advantages of direct transmission. The proposed protocol is tested, through simulation, on various network sizes and various numbers of sensors. It is shown that the proposed hybrid protocol provides lifetime improvement over both LEACH-C and direct transmission. It is shown also that such improvement depends on the network parameters, namely the size and the number of sensors. Hence, scenarios where the hybrid protocol provides significant improvement are distinguished from those where it provides modest improvements.