SPEAR: Sensor Protocol for Energy Aware Routing in Wireless Sensor Network

Classical clustering schemes such as LEACH (low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy), involve certain randomness in cluster head (CH) election which does not take into account the energy distribution of the nodes. This leads to an unstable steady state in heterogeneous conditions. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical clustering protocol, SPEAR (sensor protocol for energy aware routing), that presents an adaptive and conceptually novel paradigm, for the election of cluster heads based on energy as well as spatial distribution. Due to its heterogeneous- aware nature, SPEAR yields longer stability periods and consequently a higher average throughput and longer network lifetime compared to heterogeneous oblivious protocols such as LEACH.