A Cycle-based Clustering Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

In energy constrained wireless sensor networks, it is important that a routing protocol provides network redundancy and reliability at a minimum energy consumption cost. To satisfy these conflicting constraints, wireless sensor networks (WSN) routing protocols generally employ a clustering algorithm in which the entire network does not have to be active at all times. In this paper, we propose a novel graph-theoretic clustering algorithm that exploits cycles in a connected and undirected WSN graph to provide redundancy and reliability in an energy efficient manner. The proposed algorithm also facilitates cluster head rotation for load distribution, thereby extending the network lifetime. Our performance evaluation shows that the proposed algorithm performs better than existing graph- theoretic clustering algorithms.