An Energy Efficient Load-Balanced Routing Protocol for Small Display Devices

Current clustering algorithms usually utilize two techniques; selecting cluster heads with more residual energy, and rotating cluster heads periodically to distribute the energy consumption among nodes in each cluster and extend the network lifetime. However, they rarely consider the hot spot problems in multi-hop sensor networks. When cluster heads cooperate with each other to forward their data to the base station, the cluster heads closer to the base station are burdened with heavier relay traffic and tend to die much faster. In this paper, an improved algorithm based on the weighted clustering algorithm and a base station initiated dynamic routing protocol is proposed with additional constraints for the selection of cluster heads in wireless sensor networks. ELBRP (Energy Efficient Load-balanced Routing Protocol) groups nodes into unequal sized clusters, which become smaller the closer they are to the base station. Then, the base station chooses cluster heads based on weight metrics. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm behaves better than previous protocols in providing a system with a long lifetime.