SEARCH: A Stochastic Election Approach for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents a semi-centralized stochastic election approach named Stochastic Election of Appropriate Range Cluster Heads (SEARCH), assuring low time cost and optimal number cluster heads for each round. SEARCH, by boosting cluster head threshold of a node in a favorable position while deteriorating it otherwise, achieves an aggressive goal on prolonging the round of half alive nodes surviving (notably stable period) as well as slashing weak sensing period. In addition, we eliminate the unfavorable scenario that no cluster head emerges during some specific rounds, enhancing network performance.