Context-Aware and Energy-Efficient Protocol for the Distributed Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor network (WSNs) are composed of a large number of battery-powered wireless sensors, which acquire and monitor physical data from their surroundings through self-organization. Sensors are deployed randomly in a target area where maintenance and battery replacement are difficult or even impossible. To effectively save energy and prolong network lifetimes, networks typically adopt clustering protocols with hierarchical inter-cluster topologies for network management and data acquisition in WSNs. However, such solutions require cluster re-configuration due to early death of cluster heads (CHs) and energy inefficiency. This paper proposes a coverage- and energy-aware protocol with intra- and inter-cluster methods called CEMST based on newly defined parameters for sensor overlapping and node density functions. In addition, to adapt network dynamics while improving energy efficiency, a self-stabilizing algorithm is proposed with the Boruvka algorithm to respectively construct minimum spanning trees (MST) for intra- and inter-cluster routes. Simulation results indicate that CEMST yields more balanced clustering structures than previous efficient protocols, and provides longer network lifetime than those methods.