Traffic based clustering in wireless sensor network

To increase the lifetime and scalability of a wireless sensor network (WSN) it is necessary to have control over topology of the network. Dynamic clustering is one way for achieve the above defined objective. In this paper we are proposing a multi-level hierarchal clustering approach for WSN. Our proposed approach in this paper is to create a system which will adopt a topology (i.e. size of cluster and number of hierarchal level) in accordance with the traffic patterns and density of sensor nodes deployed in a given area of interest. Load on the cluster head near the base station will be more as compared to farther cluster heads as the proximity cluster head have to do the dual work of collecting data from its own cluster and also to forward (or relay) data from distant cluster heads. Therefore this situation may result in dying out of proximity cluster heads sooner than distant cluster heads. It will result in failure of network as a whole. In this situation a bottleneck will be created near the base station. In our approach, we are proposing an algorithm of hierarchical clustering with variable cluster size based on its distance from the base station. Variable cluster size is important for balancing inter-cluster and intra-cluster traffic.