Clustering Based Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks Using the Concept of Zonal Division of Network Field

Abstract

Wireless Sensor networks contain sensor nodes with specialized infrastructure for the purpose of inspection of certain physical conditions at very divergent environments. Usually, physical characteristics of the environment including temperature, humidity, pressure etc. are examined by the sensor nodes. These nodes are generally small sized and light weight. Because of their small size, power supply is very much limited. Careful usage of the limited power supply is a very important factor to be considered during communication of data in the network. With the aim of achieving effective energy usage, several techniques have been applied for the routing of information packets. One such technique is clustering of sensor nodes within the network. It implicates that the nodes organize themselves into groups to form several clusters where each group has a leader of the cluster group called the cluster head. The routing using this clustering technique does not always involve direct transmission. Rather, multi-hop transmission happens usually, with the data firstly being transferred from sensor nodes to their corresponding cluster heads and then later from cluster heads to the sink (Base Station). The cluster head is designated arbitrary or by taking into account various factors which differ according to the different routing protocols. In this paper, a new routing algorithm QBCR (Quadrangle based Clustering Routing Protocol) has been proposed which entails clustering process for routing the data to the base station. This protocol exhibits improvement over conventional routing protocols like LEACH, SEP and DEEC. In this clustering algorithm, division of the zones (clusters) based on the energy levels of the nodes has been carried out in form of quadrangle shaped clusters. The proposed protocol exhibits significant enhancement in the lifetime of the network, stability interval, rate of packet transfer (throughput), and the average energy of the network. The proposed protocol shows an improvement of atleast 50% in all parameters (lifetime of the network, stability interval, rate of packet transfer (throughput) and the average energy of the network) in comparison to the conventional protocols. This proposed protocol is a clear choice over the standard routing protocols wherever it is possible to deploy nodes uniformly in different zones.