A Randomly Delayed Clustering Method for Wireless Sensor Networks

In recent years, wireless sensor networks have become a very hot research area, and are expected to find lots of applications in ubiquitous monitoring and information collecting. In this paper, a random delay based hierarchical routing protocol, RDCM (Randomly Delayed Clustering Method), is proposed for mobile targets detection and positioning in wireless sensor networks. RDCM is a new fully distributed algorithm, with the ability of dynamically forming clusters on-demand for reactive sensor networks. It requires broadcasting only once for cluster head selection and intra-cluster communication schedule. Then RDCM is compared with LEACH (Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy) and the optimal routing scheme for our system model¿ideal CNS (Center at Nearest Source), in terms of communication energy costs. Simulation results show that RDCM can save more energy than LEACH while introducing a small implementation overhead when compared with ideal CNS.