An Improved Cluster Head Election Technique in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

A wireless sensor network is an autonomous system of sensor nodes. It has a Base Station and sensor nodes. Sensor nodes collect data from their environment and send it to the Base Station. Heterogeneous sensor network contains high energy sensor nodes as well as low energy nodes. A single-tier network can cause the gateway to overload with the increase in sensors density. Such overload might cause latency in communication and inadequate tracking of events. In addition, the single-tier architecture is not scalable for a larger set of sensors covering a wider area of interest because the sensors are typically not capable of long-haul communication. Hierarchical clustering is particularly useful for applications that require scalability to hundreds or thousands of nodes. Scalability in this context implies the need for load balancing and efficient resource utilization. All nodes in a network can be organized in hierarchical structures called clusters. Each cluster consists of a cluster head and several member nodes. The election of cluster head by normal nodes is a tedious task. Using Fuzzy Logic this task can be done easily. So Fuzzy is used for cluster head election. The member nodes collect data and send it to their cluster heads. The cluster head aggregates and transmits the data to the Base Station. The energy consumption of cluster heads is higher than that for member nodes. Clustering algorithms are required which can efficiently utilize the energy of nodes so that life of network can be increased