A study on the effect of applying clustering on sink movement for data gathering in wireless sensor networks

In mobile wireless sensor networks, mobile elements can be either sink or sensor. In these networks, energy constraint is very important. Clustering enhances network performance by conserve more energy as a result of data aggregation and fewer data transmission. More energy saving in mobile wireless sensor networks results using energy aware clustering algorithms, which causes network remains longer. The goal of this study is using LEACH as a clustering algorithm, which is one of the most well-known and practical energy balancing algorithms in the network. We perform mathematical analysis based on LEACH using Markov model. Furthermore, the most optimal path for moving sink is achieved by an improvement of ant colony optimization. Comparing our proposed method with circular sink methodology revealed that our method outperforms in network longevity and energy consumption.