An Energy and Distance Based Clustering Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) open a new domain which has great potentials in application of gathering data in a variety of environments. It is necessary to design energy efficient routing to maximize lifetime of WSNs, because WSNs consist of a large number of sensor nodes with limited battery. In this paper, we analyze the well-known clustering routing protocol LEACH and put forward feasible measures to improve the performance. We propose an energy and distance based clustering (EDBC) protocol which optimizes the random selection of cluster heads in LEACH. Regarding residual energy of sensor nodes, we select nodes with relatively more energy as clusters. Distances between cluster heads are greater than a proper threshold D to form a well-proportioned distribution. Simulation results show that EDBC outperforms LEACH in terms of network lifetime, load balance and energy utilization.