Grid based clustering protocol with dynamic range cluster head advertisement and traffic splitting in wireless sensor networks

Energy efficient protocol design and algorithm is one of the key issues to elongate lifetime of sensor networks. The cluster heads advertisements in each virtual grid are supposed to outreach the corresponding grid member nodes. With different competition radius, sensor node in the middle and at the edge of each virtual grid can cover grid members which implies that each cluster head should have variable competition range depending on location in the grid for energy saving. So, in this paper we design cluster head election mechanism and algorithm to decide the transmission range of each cluster head advertisement. For inter cluster communication, to let uniform depletion of energy among sensor nodes, we also derive and mathematically formulate the optimal percentage of packet traffic that should be routed to neighbor and cross level grid. The protocol is implemented in OMNeT++ and simulation results show that the proposed protocol has better network life time compared to LEACH and grid based multi hop routing protocols.