A Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Routing Protocol
of Wireless Sensor Networks
Ji Peng, Wu Chengdong, Zhang Yunzhou, Chen Fei
Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robot
Northeastern University
Shenyang, China
jipeng@ise.neu.edu.cn, wuchengdong@ise.neu.edu.cn
AbstractEnergy efficiency is one of the most important issues of
wireless sensor networks (WSN). The routing technology of the
network layer is critical in reduce the energy consumption in
WSN. Nevertheless, the reliability and data aggression also
should be analyzed. To solve these issues, an energy effective
routing protocol based on low-energy adaptive clustering
hierarchy algorithm is proposed to meet those key Qos
requirements. The proposed protocol focuses on some defects of
the traditional LEACH, and improves the energy efficiency and
other QoS parameters by excluding the node with improper
geographic location to be the cluster heads. In the protocol, the
optimum measuring range of head nodes is designed to be a
criterion of cluster head selection, and every cluster heads can be
selected according to the node density threshold in the measuring
area, which is confirmed by the node distribution situation and
communication requirement. With the simulations, the proposed
protocol is evaluated in comparison with the traditional LEACH
algorithm. The performance of the proposed protocol is verified
to not only reduce the energy consumption but also guarantees
the communication quality especially in the uneven distribution
situation.
Keywords-Wireless sensor networks; routing protocol; LEACH;
optimum measuring range; cluster head selcetion
I. INTRODUCTION
Wireless sensor networks (WSN) can be described as the
representative non-infrastructure networks that are capable of
wireless communication [1]. The intelligent networks have a
large number of sensor nodes with micro-processing capability
and limited power. Different from the traditional networks,
WSN is data-centric, self-configuring and self-healing, so its
deemed to be the most appropriate data processing method of
Ambient Intelligence [2]. For the advanced technology and
broad space of application, nowadays, it has attracted plenty of
research attention from the academia and industry. Since its
capable of attaining unaffected intercourse between human and
computer, it is said that WSN are the key of Artificial
Intelligence [3].
Routing protocol is one of the most important issues of
WSN, since its responsible for forming the available wireless
communication path. There are some different sorts of routing
construction algorithms, and one of them is hierarchy routing
protocol. In this protocol, the nodes are not considered coequal.
The cluster heads are responsible for gathering the sensing
This work is supported by National Nature Science Foundation under
Grant 60874103)
978-1-4244-6252-0/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE
information of the ordinary nodes in the cluster, and relaying
them to the sink. Energy consumption can be averagely
distributed on all nodes, and the transportation data in the
network can be reduced by data integration. However, most of
the current hierarchy routing does not take the nodes
distribution situation into consideration, and the improper head
selecting results a negative influence in communication quality
and energy consumption. In order to avoid these problems, a
communication quality improved routing named CQIR is
proposed in this paper. COIR protocol adopts the nodes
distribution factors and the cluster heads selecting method to
set the clustering structure with cluster head in proper position.
Therefore the CQIR is helpful to prolong the life of network
and improve the communication quality.
II. THE RELATED WORKS
The LEACH protocol proposed by Chandrakasan and other
researchers in MIT is a typical hierarchical clustering routing
protocol which periodically selects the cluster-heads randomly
from all the nodes in the networks area [4]. As the earliest
proposed clustering routing, LEACH is an energy effective
self-adapting routing protocol, the WSN nodes can be divided
into two kinds-the cluster head nodes and the normal nodes.
The cluster head nodes are periodically selected from all the
nodes in the network and the normal nodes joins to the near
cluster head to form the clusters. The LEACH protocol defines
the work period as round, and every round is composed of two
stages, the cluster foundation stage and the data transportation
stage. In the cluster foundation stage, every node in the
network generates a random number between 0 and 1. The
node (n) can be selected as the cluster head, if the number is
less than the threshold T(n) which is defined as follows:
p
(1)
T (n) = 1 p(r mod(1/ p)) if n G
0 ot her case
In the formation (1), p is defined as the percentage of
cluster head number in the total number of nodes, r presents
the cluster head selecting round number, and G is the set of
nodes which have not be selected as the cluster heads in the
former rounds. After the cluster foundation stage, the cluster
heads broadcast the information to nearby nodes. The nearby
nodes choose the nearest cluster head to join in according to the If h=1, (1) = p ;
intensity of the broadcast signal.
If h=2, (2) = 1 (1 p) 2 ;
The LEACH protocol performs the optimization on the
If h=3, (3) = 1 (1 p ) ;
3
energy and amount of data transportation to prolong the life of (2)
the network. However, there are also some defects in the ....
cluster foundation process[5,6,7]. Utilizing the mathematical induction, the cover rate is given
The nodes on the remote position have the possibility by:
to be selected as the cluster head, which would lead to
amount of energy consumption because of the long
(h) = 1 (1 p )h (4)
distance data transportation. According to (4) , the relationship between the cover rate
and R can be confirmed by:
The nodes distribution circumstance around the cluster
1
head also exerts an influence on the communication
quality of the network. If the cluster head positions at 1 (1 ) h (5)
R=l
the area with high node density, the data packages
would miss during the data transportation because of Similarly, the relationship between the overlap rate and the
congestion. measuring radius R also can be described. So the overlap rate
of different heads number can be calculated by:
In the unequal distribution situation, the cluster head in
the area with high nodes density would probably form If h=1, (1) = p (1) = 0 ;
the cluster with a high number of nodes while other 1
cluster maybe comprises few nodes. The balance of the
If h=2, (2) = p (2) = p ;
2

network would be undermined in this situation.

2 2
If h=3, (3) = p (3) p3 ; (6)
III. PREPARE YOUR PAPER BEFORE STYLING = p2
3 3
The CQRT protocol according to the nodes distribution ....
situation is proposed to deal with the upper problems. In the Utilizing the mathematical induction, the overlap rate is
network, the cluster heads selected by the LEACH process given by:
broadcast in the radium of R to form the measuring area. The
nodes in the measuring area would return back the signal to the 1 (1 p)n
respective cluster head, so the cluster head would acquire the ( n) = p (7)
number (S) of the nodes in the measuring area. The n
broadcasting radium R of measuring area is affected by the The head rate is p=5%, and the comparing permanents of
following two factors. (1) The broadcasting radium R design is number of node, cluster head, radium, cover rate, and overlap
enough to measuring the nearby nodes distribution. The total rate are listed on the TABLE I. Furthermore, the relationship
measuring area of the cluster head would reach a certain cover between the cover rate and R, the relationship between the
rate, so the node distribution situation in the measuring area overlap rate and R can be show by figure 1 and figure 2.
could reflect the node distribution situation in the clustering TABLE I. THE RELATIONSHIP OF COVER RATE OVERLAP RATE AND
area. (2) As the broadcasting radium R extends, the overlap rate RADIUS R
of the cluster heads rise accordingly. Furthermore, the energy
Number of 50 100 150 200
consumption in the measuring process would also increase as nodes
the length of R. Cluster head 3 5 8 10
Radius 20 15 12 10
A. The Selection of Measuring Radius R Cover rate 33.15% 30.67% 30.94% 27.32%
According to the above two factors, the length analysis of Overlap rate 3.99% 4.04% 4.48% 3.55%
the broadcasting radium R is made for optimization. The
measuring area of the node is supposed to be covered in the
network area, neglecting the situation of node on the brim of
the network area with measuring area extending out of the
network. In the cluster head selecting process of LEACH, the
random selecting process determines the random distribution of
the cluster heads. The total number of the nodes in the network
is n. The number of the cluster head is h. The cover rate is .
The overlap rate is . The measuring area of each node is
2
R2. The network area is l . The radio of the measuring area to
the network area is given by p = R / l . Above all, the
2 2

Figure 1. The relationship between the cover rate and broadcast radius R
cover rate of different heads number can be calculated by:
 P ' = P /
Sup

=
k = S down
Cnk p k (1 p)k (10)

IV. SIMULATIONS AND RESULT ANALYSIS

The simulation is designed in the 100 100 square area
with 100 nodes, and the Sink is arranged at (50, 50). The
cluster head selecting probability is 0.5%, and the initial energy
for each node is 0.5J. The relationship between the lifetime of
the nodes and the round can be simulated according to the
Figure 2. The relationship between the overlap rate and the broadcast radius analysis of the network energy consumption. Meanwhile, the
R relationship between the total package lost and the round can
be also be simulated by the calculation of package lost in each
B. The Measurement of Distribution Density round to show the communication quality performance, and the
After the measuring area radius R is confirmed, the terminated time of package measuring is given by the
distribution density of the cluster head can be measured appearance of the first dead node. The experiment is designed
according to the number of nodes in the measuring area. As to to contrast the performances on the lifetime and
an arbitrary Node (k), the nodes in the measuring area of Node communication quality between the two protocols in the two
(k) are Node (k1), Node (k2), Node (k3) Node (ks). The conditions of even distribution and uneven distribution.
number ks stands for the node density of Node (k).
If the node with low node density is selected as the cluster
head, the other nodes in the cluster would take a long distance
to communicate. This will lead more energy consumption. So
the lower limit S down is set up to avoid the node with little
neighbor node to be selected as head. The situation of nodes
embraced in the measuring area is submitted to the binomial
distribution. The probability of number k of nodes which are
embraced in the certain measuring area is given by:
P(k ) = Cnk p k (1 p) k (8) (a) The even distribution of wireless sensor networks
The lower limit of the probability is Plow , which is set
artificially to exclude the node with low node density, and
Sdown is given by:
Sdown

P(k ) P
k =0
low
(9)

The credibility of the data communication is an important

factor of WSN. Most reactive routing protocols can find routes
that avoid network hot spots during the route acquisition phase.
Such protocols work well when traffic is not busy. However, (b) The lifetime comparison in the even distribution
the protocol would become unsuccessful when the nodes are
distributed unequally. Some area with high density of nodes
can cause the channel conflict and result in communication
congestion. Furthermore, the cluster heads selected in the high
node density distribution have to load more nodes in the cluster
and the lifetime will be decreased. So the nodes in the high
node density area should be avoided to be selected as the
cluster heads, and the upper limit Sup is set to optimize the
communication quality in the network.
When both the down limit and upper limit are confirmed,
the cluster head selecting probability has to be compensated (c) The package lost comparison in the even distribution
according to the upper and lower threshold, since the cluster Figure 3. The simulation results of even distribution
head must meet the requirement of the threshold. The p is
given by:
 As shown in Figure 3, the LEACH and CQIR protocols are
similar on energy consumption and communication
performance. Since the nodes in the even distribution would
not be too dense or too sparse, there are only a small quantity
of nodes located remotely that should be excluded from cluster
head selecting, and it is a low probability to form a high node
density area which would cause a data congestion when a
sudden evidence takes place in the area. Hence, the
improvement on energy consumption and communication
quality is slight.
(a) The uneven distribution of wireless sensor networks
(b) The energy consumption comparison in uneven distribution
(c) The package lost comparison in uneven distribution
Figure 4. The simulation results of uneven distribution.
From Figure4, the distinction between the LEACH and
CQIR protocols is apparent on the performance. In the uneven
distribution the thresholds can effectively exclude the nodes
locating on the improper position to be selected as the cluster
heads. The nodes which meet for the threshold requirement are
beneficial for the lifetime and communication quality of the
network. As the number of the nodes in the proper location is
limited, the nodes which are frequently selected as the cluster
heads would consume the energy quickly. Therefore, the
appearance of first dead node in CQIR protocol is earlier than
that in LEACH protocol. But the total lifetime can be
prolonged and communication quality can be greatly improved.
From the experiment, the CQIR protocol is suitable for the
uneven distribution situation. In fact, the uneven distribution is
more convergent to the application situation.
V. Conclusion
In the paper, a new energy efficient hierarchy routing
protocol, which is proposed based on the LEACH protocol, is
proposed. The protocol prolongs the network lifetime and
improves the communication quality by the way of selecting
cluster heads in the area of proper node density. The routing
protocol can achieve a good performance in the condition of
uneven distribution.
Since the CQIR protocol does not take the leaving energy
into consideration, the protocol has the problem that all the
nodes in the network can not be fully utilized for routing
organization. And the problem whether the optimization effect
can be improved for a wider arrange usage by adjusting the
threshold according to the degree of uneven distribution is still
on the further study.
REFERENCES
[1] J. Gehrke, L. Liu, Guest editors' introduction: sensor-network
applications, IEEE Internet Computing, 2006, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 16-17.
[2] Y. Zou, K. Chakrabarty, Distributed coverage and connectivity centric
technique for selecting active nodes in wireless sensor networks, IEEE
Transactions on Computers, March 2005vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 978-991,.
[3] Zhou Z, Zhou S, Cui S, Energy-efficient cooperative communication in
a clustered wireless sensor network, IEEE Transaction on Vehicular
Technology, 2008, vol. 57, no. 6, pp. 3618-3628.
[4] W. R. Heinzelman, A. Chandrakasan, H. Balakrishnan Energy-Efficient
Communication Protocol forWireless Microsensor Networks.
Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System
Sciences, 2000, pp. 33-54.
[5] A. A. Ahmed, H. Shi, Y. Shang. A survey on network protocols for
wireless sensor networks. International Conference on Information
Technology: Research and Education, Aug. 2003, pp. 301-305.
[6] R.Yu, G. Wang, S. Mei. Designing energy efficient routing scheme
with delay constraint for wireless sensor networks. Consumer
Communications and Networking Conference, 2006 April, pp. 437-441.
[7] M. Slavik, I. Mahgoub, B. Ahmed, I. Mohammad. Analytical model of
energy consumption in hierarchical wireless sensor networks. High-
Capacity Optical Networks and Enabling Technologies, 2010, 8: 84-90.