Connectivity-Aware and Minimum Energy Dissipation Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper formulates an analytical model of energy dissipation in cluster-based wireless sensor networks for network connectivity. The proposed model constructs the analytic expression for the optimal cluster size for minimum energy dissipation. The same model is then applied to control the cluster size which is defined as number of nodes connected to a node (node degree) through transmission power control. The proposed approach constrains the cluster size through node's degree so that all cluster heads maintain a minimum node degree for network connectivity. The simulation results show the total energy dissipation in the network with respect to node's degree, and when cluster heads' degree is above a certain value (threshold), the network remains connected at many more rounds during the network operation.