Improved network survivability using multi-threshold adaptive range clustering (M-TRAC) algorithm for energy balancing in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have become one of the most prominent areas of research in the field of modern communication systems. But unlike IP based routing, WSNs focus on data centric communication. Thus routing is one of the important issues to be considered for a WSN. As sensor networks are generally deployed in hostile environments, batteries cannot be recharged often. Thus energy conservation is one of the important design parameters for WSNs. Many energy aware routing protocols were proposed in the literature. Cluster based algorithms were proved to be better compared to multi-hop routing. In this paper an attempt is made in proposing a novel cluster based energy efficient routing algorithm for WSNs namely the Multi-Threshold Adaptive Range Clustering (M-TRAC) algorithm, which incorporates centralized network management with variable thresholds in order to assure a uniform load distribution amongst nodes, thus improving the network lifetime.