An Energy-Balanced Chain-Cluster Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor network, the initial energy and the balance of consumed energy of each node play a key role in lifetime and stability of network. In this paper, an Energy-Balanced Chain-cluster Routing Protocol (EBCRP) for wireless sensor network is presented and its properties are investigated also. The core point of EBCRP is forming several chain-clusters in the initial stage, which is based on the ladder algorithm. In addition, a number of nodes as the candidate for cluster head in each cluster are selected and taken turns by an energy restriction to communicate with the Base Station (BS). Simulation result shows that: the energy consumption of each node is effectively balanced and the network lifetime is greatly increased by EBCRP.