Performance evaluation of wireless sensor networks using LEACH protocol

Abstract

Recent days witnessed considerable developments in the field of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The applications of these networks can be seen in the simple consumer electronic devices as well as in the advanced space technology. The communication protocols are of prior importance and interest; the low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) protocol is used to enhance the performance of power consumption for the WSNs nodes. The efficiency of a wireless network can be affected by different factors, such as the size of the WSN and the initial energy of the sensor node. This can inspire the researchers to develop the optimum structure of the WSNs to get its desired functionality. In this paper, the performance of the low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) protocol is investigated using MATLAB to study the effect of the initial energy of the sensor node and the WSN size on the number of the running nodes. It is found that increasing the initial energy of a sensor node increases the life time of the node and hence the number of the running nodes. It has been also approved that the WSN size has an inverse proportion with the number of running sensor nodes during the use of LEACH protocol.