A Distributed Multi-competitive Clustering Approach for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) need simple and effective approaches to reduce energy consumption because of limited energy. Clustering nodes is an effective approach to make WSNs energy-efficient. In this paper we propose a distributed multi-competitive clustering approach (DMCC) for WSNs. First, the nodes with high residual energy are selected to act as cluster head candidates (CHCs). Second, cluster heads (CHs) are selected from the CHCs based on a hybrid of competition. If the distances to the selected CHs are suitable, a CHC with more neighbor nodes and smaller average distance to its neighbor nodes is more likely to become a CH. If the number of CHs selected from the CHCs is insufficient, more CHs are selected from non-CHCs continually according to residual energy until the CHs number is suitable. DMCC makes the CHs number stable and distribute the CHs evenly. Simulation experiments were performed on to compare DMCC with some related clustering approaches. The experimental results suggest that DMCC balances the load among different clusters and reduces the energy consumption, which improves the network lifetime.