Variable Area Routing Protocol in WSNs: A Hybrid, Energy-Efficient Approach

In sensor networks, clustering protocol such as LEACH is an efficient method to increase whole networks lifetime. However, this protocol result in high energy consumption at the cluster head node. Hence, this protocol must changes the cluster formation and cluster head node in each round to prolong the network lifetime. But this method also causes a high amount of energy consumption during the set-up process of cluster formation. In order to improve energy efficiency, in this paper, we propose a new cluster formation algorithm named EEVAR (an Energy Efficient Variable Area Routing protocol). This scheme decreases unnecessary repetitious set-up process and prolongs steady-state process. As a result of analysis and comparison, our scheme reduces energy consumption of nodes, and improve the efficiency of communications in sensor networks compared with current clustering methods.