Multi Threshold Adaptive Range Clustering (M-TRAC) algorithm for energy balancing in wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have become one of the most interesting areas of the modern communication systems. As routing is mainly data centric in WSNs, normal IP based routing does not suffice. As sensor networks are mostly deployed in areas where batteries cannot be recharged often, energy conservation is one of the important design parameters for a routing protocol. Many energy efficient protocols have been proposed in the literature. Cluster based algorithms have proved to be better compared to flat routing. In this paper, we propose a novel cluster based energy efficient routing algorithm for WSNs, the Multi Threshold Adaptive Range Clustering (M-TRAC) algorithm, which incorporates centralized network management with variable thresholds assuring a uniform load distribution amongst nodes so as to improve the network lifetime.