Energy-Efficient Cluster-based Routing Protocol for Solving Data Route Selection Problem in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of many sensor nodes (SNs) used in remote or critical environments. These nodes have restricted power resources; hence, power consumption is a critical issue for such networks. Cluster-based routing protocol plays a vital role in prolonging the WSNs lifetime. In a cluster-based structure, cluster heads (CHs) nodes can transmit their aggregated data toward the base station (BS) via a single-hop or multi-hop path that are called Inter-Cluster Single-Hop (ICSH) and Inter-Cluster Multi-Hop (ICMH) transmission, respectively. In ICSH, the energy hole problem arises as far away CHs nodes consume much more energy and die early. On the contrary, ICMH can prolong the network lifetime by balancing the energy consumption of these far nodes using relay transmission. This paper proposes an Energy-Efficient Cluster-based Routing Protocol based on the Dijkstra Algorithm (EEPDA), which groups SNs into clusters and establishes an optimal path to route data with the lowest energy consumption and save the lifetime of the SNs. The simulation results of various scenarios show that EEPDA outperforms other protocols from the prospective of energy consumption, throughput and network lifetime.