Energy Aware Multiple Cluster Head Selection and Stray Nodes Handling for LEACH Protocol in Wireless Sensor Network Environments

Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarch (LEACH) is one of the most prominent cluster-based routing algorithm for wireless sensor networks (WSN). LEACH applies round where clusters of sensor nodes are formed with a single node that acts as a cluster head (CH) for each cluster. However there are existing problems related to multiple CH appearances and stray node problems where sensor nodes do not receive any CH advertisement messages due to limited radio coverage from the elected CH nodes. To deal with multiple CH appearance problems, this paper evaluate two parameters used to select best CH node, they are the remaining CH energy and distance between the CH node to sink node. The results of the experiment show that by using energy factor as CH-choosing decision factor results in an overall longer network lifetime, more packets sent and received by the sink and overall better packet delivery ratio (PDR), but the network latency is considerably longer than by using CH distance to sink as a decision parameter to select the best CH node in multiple CH appearances.