Adaptive traffic aware clustering and routing model for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Designing effective clustering algorithms plays a very important role in improving network lifetime target coverage (NLTC) in heterogeneous wireless sensor networks (HWSNs). However, the current clustering mechanism failed to address hotspot problem resulting in poor coverage and network lifetime performance. Recently, unequal clustering has been used for addressing hotspot problem in HWSNs. However, when performing inter-cluster routing, load balancing is not efficient and the energy degradation is high, which affects the overall network performance. This work introduces an effective model namely adaptive traffic aware clustering and routing (ATACR) model to address hotspot and load balancing issues. The ATACR introduces a novel unequal clustering and ideal distribution of load in different cluster levels. The ATACR model improves network lifetime, reduces control channel overhead, and attains better throughput in comparison with existing routing models.