The Diffusion Clustering Scheme and Hybrid Energy Balanced Routing Protocol (DCRP) in Multi-hop Wireless Sensor Networks

To avoid generating isolated CHs in clustering process, Diffusion Clustering Scheme and Hybrid Energy Balanced Routing Protocol (DCRP) is proposed. Our DCRP includes clustering phase and routing phase. In clustering phase, Diffusion Clustering Scheme (DCS) is designed to keep communication between neighbour CHs without relay nodes. Clusters are formed by diffusing outward from the base station hop by hop, while new CHs are selected from the member nodes of existing clusters. Moreover, the residual energy, depth and the number of neighbour nodes out of clusters have been taken into consideration to reduce the number of clusters and transmission delay. In routing phase, Hybrid Energy Balanced Routing Protocol (HEBR) is employed. Analyses and simulation results show that DCRP extends the lifespan of WSNs with low transmission delay by approximately 58%, 16% and 10% compared with DEBR, EEUC and MOCH.