Energy efficient routing in multi-level LEACH for WSNs

Energy efficient routing is the paramount point of significance in any wireless sensor network (WSN) so that the network sustains without any human intervention. Various energy efficient protocols have been proposed, multi-level Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) being one among these. The multi-level LEACH protocol involves election of cluster heads at various hierarchical levels. If the area of deployment is large, the farther cluster heads cannot reach the base station directly. In such cases, it is needed to make use of an energy efficient routing technique for communication among cluster heads and forward the data towards the base station. Energy consumption is reduced by adopting routing mechanisms based on multi-hop and inverted tree in this multi-level LEACH protocol. This work deals with multi-level LEACH comprising of 1L-LEACH and 2L-LEACH. Directed diffusion carried out in 1L-LEACH and flat topology are compared with flooding. In directed diffusion, routing is done between a source and a sink optimizing the path taken. NS-3 simulation platform has been used and the results are presented.