Designing a cost aware gradient based protocol for Wireless sensor networks, employing data aggregation and clustering

TLDR: Simulation results show that the proposed protocol improves the wireless sensor network performance in two ways: first, the data aggregation feature reduces 75% data load on the network and second, energy aware clustering and cost aware multi-hop communication increases the lifetime of network as compared to LEACH and EEPSC routing protocols.

Abstract: Many routing protocols have been designed and evaluated for Wireless Sensor Networks using simulation tools. Only a few of these proposed works have been tested in real world scenarios. This paper presents a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) data aggregation & clustering protocol that used cost aware gradient based routing. The proposed mechanism combines a gradient based routing scheme GRACE with the hierarchical scheme of the LEACH protocol. By combining these two protocols and taking the important factor of node energy into consideration when selecting the cluster heads, a robust strategy for data aggregation and routing is developed. This protocol was compared with flooding routing scheme, energy-Efficient Protocol with static clustering (EEPSC) protocol and LEACH protocol using simulation approach (OMNET++). Simulation results show that the proposed protocol improves the wireless sensor network performance in two ways. First, the data aggregation feature reduces 75% data load on the network and second, energy aware clustering and cost aware multi-hop communication increases the lifetime of network as compared to LEACH and EEPSC routing protocols. 