An Integrated Protocol for Coverage, Connectivity and Communication (C3) in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consume a lot of energy in infrastructure creation and maintenance which also include topology control, i.e., coverage and connectivity. Several sleep-based topology control protocols have been proposed for better performance. While the existing protocols serve their purpose, they still consume high energy. We propose an energy-efficient protocol for Coverage, Connectivity and Communication (C3) in WSNs. The proposed protocol runs in four steps: divide the network into virtual rings using RSSI, define clusters having cluster heads at alternating rings, make dings that are rings inside clusters using triangular tessellation, and start sending data through cluster heads which may involve gateways. It achieves better performance by using near-optimal deployment, load balancing, and energy-efficient communication. Simulation results show that C3 protocol can guarantee 1-connected network, partial coverage of greater than 90% and energy-efficient communication, while consuming 20-25% energy compared to the Layered Diffusion-based Coverage Control (LDCC), and the Coverage and Connectivity Protocol (CCP).