Dynamic cluster head for lifetime efficiency in WSN

Saving energy and increasing network lifetime are significant challenges in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, we propose a mechanism to distribute the responsibility of cluster-heads among the wireless sensor nodes in the same cluster based on the ZigBee standard, which is the latest WSN standard. ZigBee supports ad hoc on-demand vector (AODV) and cluster-tree routing protocols in its routing layer. However, none of these protocols considers the energy level of the nodes in the network establishing process or in the data routing process. The cluster-tree routing protocol supports single or multi-cluster networks. However, each single cluster in the multi-cluster network has only one node acting as a cluster head. These cluster-heads are fixed in each cluster during the network lifetime. Consequently, using these cluster-heads will cause them to die quickly, and the entire linked nodes to these cluster-heads will be disconnected from the main network. Therefore, the proposed technique to distribute the role of the cluster head among the wireless sensor nodes in the same cluster is vital to increase the lifetime of the network. Our proposed technique is better in terms of performance than the original structure of these protocols. It has increased the lifetime of the wireless sensor nodes, and increased the lifetime of the WSN by around 50% of the original network lifetime.