Heap and parameter-based load balanced clustering algorithms for wireless sensor networks

Clustering is an efficient technique to improve scalability and life time of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, energy efficiency of the sensor nodes and load balancing of the cluster heads (CHs) are the two most important issues that must be addressed in designing clustering algorithm for WSNs. In this paper, we first present a clustering algorithm called energy efficient load-balanced clustering algorithm (EELBCA) that addresses energy efficiency of the sensor nodes and load balancing of the CHs in terms of cardinality of the clusters. EELBCA is a min-heap-based clustering algorithm which is shown to run in O(n log m) time for n sensor nodes and m CHs. We next propose a parameter-based clustering algorithm (PBCA) that considers the energy efficiency of the sensor nodes and also the load balancing of the CHs in terms of overall energy consumption by incorporating communication load of the CHs with respect to the base station. The algorithm requires O(n log n) time. The experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithms in terms of execution time, load balancing, energy consumption, number of live sensor nodes and the number of live CHs.