A novel energy efficient chain based hierarchical routing protocol for wireless sensor networks

The nodes in a sensor network are severely constrained by energy. Reducing the energy consumption of the nodes to prolong the network lifetime is considered a critical challenge while designing a new routing protocol. In this paper we propose a new power-aware, adaptive, hierarchical and chain based protocol - CCPAR (Clustered Chain based Power Aware Routing) that utilizes the periodic assignments of the cluster head role to different nodes based on the highest residual battery capacity for ensuring the even dissipation of power by all the nodes. Transmission from a single cluster head to the base station in each round and the distribution of the data aggregation workload among all the nodes, save the cluster heads from early exhaustion. The use of data aggregation also reduces the amount of information to be transmitted to the base station. By chaining the nodes in each cluster and using a separate chain for the cluster heads, CCPAR offers the advantage of small transmit distances for most of the nodes and thus helps them to be operational for a longer period of time by conserving their limited energy. The simultaneous construction of multiple chains in different clusters reduces the time for chain construction as well as the length of each of the chains. These shorter length chains solve the problem of excessive delay in transmission for the distant nodes. Use of a fresh set of parameter values in each round provides the users the flexibility to change these values in a way to control the power consumption. The introduction of MAX threshold enables CCPAR to be quickly responsive and thus highly suitable for time critical applications. From the performance evaluation we observe that CCPAR outperforms other protocols in terms of energy saving and longevity of the network.