Abstract—A wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of spatially distributed micro-sensors capable of harvesting and transmitting environmental data in an autonomous manner for monitoring physical or environmental conditions. The data captured by the nodes are routed via multi-hop routing to a node called a collection point. For many sensor network applications, the most important features are the network’s lifetime, scalability, and equilibrium. Clustering techniques are an effective solution for achieving these objectives. As an alternative technique, chains can be built instead of clusters. In this article, we present a new routing protocol for wireless sensor networks, called “enhanced protocol based on chains and optimized clustering” (EPCOC). The new protocol combines the advantages of the K-means algorithm with MapReduce and a number of WSN technologies such as LEACH, PEGASIS, LEACH-C, and K-LEACH. This approach organizes the network nodes into an optimized cluster of chains by applying both the clustering approach and the chains approach. An analysis of EPCOC’s performance shows that it extended the network lifetime 40% to 50% over that of LEACH, 30% to 35% over that of LEACH-C, and 15% to 22% over that of PEGASIS. Furthermore, EPCOC achieved marked improvements over those protocols in terms of energy efficiency and latency.
 

Index Terms—Wireless sensor network, network lifetime, energy efficiency, K-means, MapReduce, LEACH, PEGASIS, LEACH-C, K-LEACH

Cite: Ilies Ali Lekhal and Samira Chouraqui, "Routing Optimization Using an Enhanced Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks with Chain Structure," Journal of Communications, vol. 13, no. 12, pp. 691-701, 2018. Doi: 10.12720/jcm.13.12.691-701