Power control strategy for wireless sensor networks based on node clustering

In wireless sensor networks, sensor nodes are severely battery-powered and hard to replace. Nodes will loss function when they run out of power. To reduce the overall energy consumption of nodes in network, and extend network lifetime, this paper proposed a power control algorithm based on node clustering. In the proposed algorithm, by analyzing the spatial geometric relationship of nodes and utilizing cluster analysis, nodes that have similarity nature can be clustered together as a category. Therefore, the packet transmission between nodes can be achieved by means of inter-category communication. Moreover, variable power level is used for packet transmission. Compared with the LINT algorithm, simulation results demonstrate the proposed algorithm is effective to reduce network energy consumption, and extend the lifetime of the network.