A relay-based clustering algorithm for heterogeneous energy wireless sensor networks

A relay-based clustering algorithm (RBC) is proposed in this paper for heterogeneous energy wireless sensor networks. The “Relay” mechanism is introduced to relay the “Cluster Head” position to its successor by considering the nodes´ residual energy. In RBC, only the nodes with highest residual energy in each cluster will be assigned as cluster heads. RBC is easy to implement, and could work in the distributed way. Simulation results show that this new scheme provides higher network performance than the classical and the improved clustering algorithms in heterogeneous networks, in terms of longer lifetime and the amount of effective messages of the network.