An energy-efficient clustering algorithm for multihop data gathering in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks afford a new opportunity to observe and interact with physical phenomena at an unprecedented fidelity. To fully realize this vision, these networks have to be self-organizing, self-healing, economical and energy-efficient simultaneously. Since the communication task is a significant power consumer, there are various attempts to introduce energy-awareness within the communication stack. Node clustering, to reduce direct transmission to the base station, is one such attempt to control energy dissipation for sensor data gathering. In this work, we propose an efficient dynamic clustering algorithm to achieve a network-wide energy reduction in a multihop context. We also present a realistic energy dissipation model based on the results from stochastic geometry to accurately quantify energy consumption employing the proposed clustering algorithm for various sensor node densities, network areas and transceiver properties.