Dual Sink Based-Energy Aware Unequal Clustering Routing Algorithm for Continuous Monitoring Applications in Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless sensor network is characterized by tiny sensor nodes that are deployed within the target area to observe certain physical quantities. Clustering is a significant method to increase energy efficiency and network lifetime of WSN. The identical clusters near to the sink form a part of fixed path towards the sink and hence may waste more energy resulting in hot spot problem. In applications like continuous monitoring, usage of static sink, makes the situation more critical as the nodes far away from sink continuously transmits data. A combination of unequal clustering algorithm and mobile sink can solve hot spot problem. But while using mobile sink, we need to consider its feasibility to be used in inaccessible areas as well as the delay constraints which plays a dynamic role in continuous monitoring applications. In this paper we propose an Energy Aware Unequal Clustering algorithm using a static sink and mobile sink. The paper suggests smaller size clusters around static sink and the entire clusters in the network transmit their data only to their nearest static or mobile sink. Simulation results confirm that EAUC-DUAL outperforms LEACH with static sink and LEACH with dual sink in terms of network lifetime and energy consumption.