A Novel Precomputed Optimal Procrastination Time Interval for Re-Clustering to Maximize Operation Time of Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks, the energy consumption of sensors is not uniform over the whole region of deployment. The uneven energy usage occurs because some sensors have to transmit data to farther distances or have to transmit more data packets than others. This leads to a shorter duration of operation because some sensors’ energy will deplete fast creating holes in the network. To alleviate this problem, we proposed an algorithm we named Procrastinated Clustering and Multi-Hop Routing (PCMR). To prolong the operation, it will optimally assign sensors with different precomputed procrastination periods to schedule the clustering and routing processes. In PCMR, sensors’ clustering and routing intervals depend on their locations in the network with respect to the sink. The algorithm could reduce and balance energy consumption for sensors distributed over a wide area. Procrastination periods are precomputed off-line before deployment. Therefore, it is easy to implement and is efficient, even for a large network for which real-time reorganization would involve transmitting a large number of signaling packets. The results from simulations show that the proposed PCMR algorithm could balance energy usage among sensors, and prolong the network lifetime compared to existing works based on techniques such as adjusting cluster size and/or multi-path transmission.