An efficient distributed cluster-head election technique for load balancing in wireless sensor networks

Energy constraint is the most critical problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). To address this issue, clustering has been introduced as an efficient way for routing. However, the available clustering algorithms do not efficiently consider the geographical information of nodes in cluster-head election. This leads to uneven distribution of cluster-heads and unbalanced cluster sizes that brings about uneven energy dissipation in clusters. In this paper, an Efficient Distributed Cluster-head Election technique for Load balancing (EDCEL) is proposed. The main criterion of the algorithm, dispersal of cluster-heads, is achieved by increasing the Euclidian distance between cluster-heads. Simulation results show the effectiveness of this approach in terms of balancing intra-cluster energy dissipation and lifetime longevity.