An Optimized Management Scheme to Improve Performance of Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

With increasing significance of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) on real-time applications, cluster formation and critical node avoidance plays a key role in determining the performance of WSNs. The sensor node that cannot join as a cluster member with any cluster head is denoted as critical node. The effectiveness of clustering mechanism could be improved by minimizing the critical node occurrence and the link changes. Numerous single hop and distributed cluster formation algorithms have been proposed in the literature to develop clusters. However, the existing algorithms do not have proper solutions to handle link failures and critical node problem in mobile sensor environment. A novel protocol, the Velocity Energy-Efficient and Link Stability-based Clustering Protocol (VELSCP) has been proposed in this paper to effectively overcome the critical node problem and to form clusters with stable links. The proposed protocol successfully addresses the critical node problem and link failure issues by selecting a proper cluster head (CH). In this methodology, a sensor node (SN) selects itself as a cluster head among one hop neighbor nodes based on its residual energy, coverage distance, Received Signal Strength (RSS), mobility and connection time. The proposed scheme is evaluated and compared with established algorithms like LEACH, HEED and MBC. Simulation results clearly demonstrate that the proposed scheme provides better QoS than the existing schemes in terms of connection time, RSS, throughput, delay and energy consumption.