SOFM Neural Network Based Hierarchical Topology Control for Wireless Sensor Networks

Well-designed network topology provides vital support for routing, data fusion, and target tracking in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Self-organization feature map (SOFM) neural network is a major branch of artificial neural networks, which has self-organizing and self-learning features. In this paper, we propose a cluster-based topology control algorithm for WSNs, named SOFMHTC, which uses SOFM neural network to form a hierarchical network structure, completes cluster head selection by the competitive learning among nodes, and takes the node residual energy and the distance to the neighbor nodes into account in the clustering process. In addition, the approach of dynamically adjusting the transmitting power of the cluster head nodes is adopted to optimize the network topology. Simulation results show that SOFMHTC may get a better energy-efficient performance and make more balanced energy consumption compared with some existing algorithms inWSNs.