A new energy-efficient clustering algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in wireless sensor networks. One of the major issues in wireless sensor network is developing an energy-efficient clustering protocol. Hierarchical clustering algorithms are very important in increasing the network´s life time. Each clustering algorithm is composed of two phases, the setup phase and steady state phase. The hot point in these algorithms is the cluster head selection. In this paper, we proposed EELTC (an energy-efficient level-based and time-based clustering algorithm for wireless sensor networks), which is a new hierarchical clustering algorithm and has the ability of creating unequal clusters with very low controlling overhead. In our algorithm, all sensors determine their level by receiving a message from the base station. Based on its level and energy each node sets a time to start advertising itself in the network to form clusters. The simulation results demonstrate that our proposed clustering approach is more effective in prolonging the network lifetime compared with EEUC, LEACH.