Dual head static clustering algorithm for wireless sensor networks

Clustering of nodes is often used in wireless sensor networks to achieve data aggregation and reduce the number of nodes transmitting the data to the sink. This paper proposes a novel dual head static clustering algorithm (DHSCA) to equalise energy consumption by the sensor nodes and increase the wireless sensor network lifetime. Nodes are divided into static clusters based on their location to avoid the overhead of cluster re-formation in dynamic clustering. Two nodes in each cluster, selected on the basis of the their residual energy and their distance from the sink and other nodes in the cluster, are designated as cluster heads, one for data aggregation and the other for data transmission. This reduces energy consumption during intra-cluster and inter-cluster communication. A multi-hop technique avoiding the hot-spot problem is used to transmit the data to the sink. Experiments to observe the energy consumption patterns of the nodes and the fraction of packets successfully delivered using the DHSCA suggest improvements in energy consumption equalisation, which, in turn, enhances the lifetime of the network. The algorithm is shown to outperform all the other static clustering algorithms, while being comparable with the performance of the best dynamic algorithm.