Traffic Heterogeneity Aware Fuzzy Logic Based Clustering Protocol to Maximize the Lifetime of Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been of importance since they came into existence because of their numerous uses and low cost of electronics involved in sensor nodes. The nodes are powered by smaller batteries and energy conservation has remained important area of research of WSN because replacement of the batteries is costly affair. Clustering is the most famous approach followed by researchers to maximize the network lifespan. These nodes do have heterogeneity levels in terms of energy and traffic sensor by them. Selection of the optimal cluster head considering the node’s characteristics is important task in clustering as it impacts the performance of the network. This paper proposed a clustering protocol named as Traffic Heterogeneity aware Fuzzy logic based Clustering Protocol (THFLCB). This protocol uses the fuzzy rules to find the aptness value of a node to become cluster head. The parameters considered for cluster head election are traffic sensed by a node (traffic heterogeneity), remaining energy of the node (energy heterogeneity), energy cost of communication with the base station and distance to the base station. The proposed protocol was evaluated in terms of number of alive nodes in the network. The protocol has outperformed other state of the art protocols.