Energy Efficient Clustering Protocol for Minimizing Cluster Size and Inter Cluster Communication in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract: There are many applications like battle field monitoring, habitat monitoring, disaster relief operations, hostile areas, object tracking, remote harsh fields, and contaminated urban regions etc. which need random deployment of sensor nodes. In random deployment the sensor nodes may be grouped or sparse in the sensing field. Some of the existing clustering protocols used probabilistic threshold and random number for cluster head selection process. In these protocols cluster heads can be overlapped or grouped in small region. Due to randomness property in cluster head selection, any sensor node can become cluster head and also form uneven sized cluster. In large size cluster, member nodes need more energy for data transmission. More number of clusters in sensing field reduces the cluster size as well as energy consumption of cluster members. It can increase data transmission from cluster head to base station (Inter cluster communication) that consumes lot of energy in the larger area network. The proper coordination among grouped cluster head can increase the stability period and network lifespan. In this paper a new Energy Efficient Cluster Protocol (EECP) has been proposed for cluster head selection and coordination among grouped or nearby cluster heads.

Keywords: Cluster head selection, cluster size, inter cluster communication, stability period.