Performance evaluation of low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy protocol for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Clustering of sensor nodes is an effective technique for achieving prolonged network lifetime, scalability, and load balancing. This paper focuses on the performance evaluation of the Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocol that can be implemented in wireless sensor networks in order to minimize the communication costs and increase the network lifetime. LEACH randomly selects a few sensor nodes as cluster-heads and rotates their role to evenly distribute the energy load among the sensors in the network. LEACH is effective in prolonging the network lifetime by consuming only a small percentage of the total dissipated energy in the system. We compared LEACH protocol with direct transmission to show the effectiveness of clustering in sensor networks. Simulation results show that LEACH produces lesser number of transmissions compared to direct transmission and increases the energy savings.