Competitive clustering of wireless sensor networks with ultra-wideband multiple-access relay channel

Energy usage, communication bandwidth, and memory space are important parameters in the design of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). To maximize the lifetime of a WSN, the sensor nodes are grouped in subsets called clusters. This clustering is performed to minimize total energy consumption, storage space, or maximize the information flow rate and bandwidth efficiency. We introduce a novel method for clustering and Cluster Head (CH) selection according to a competition between sensor nodes with correlated data. The cluster heads intend to send their data via Multiple Access Relay Channel (MARC). Our criteria is maximum flow rate in Ultra-WideBand (UWB) communications which is a function of sensors noise powers at the relay receiver and destination. While previous works have considered either energy or cost (rate) or distance for clustering purpose, our proposed method consider all these factors simultaneously.