A calculation method of the distribution of cluster heads for balancing energy consumption in multi-hop heterogeneous networks

In the multi-hop wireless sensor networks, heterogeneous and clustered, energy consumption of nodes are usually unbalanced. To solve it, a calculation method of the distribution of cluster heads is proposed in our paper. Based on the theory of load-balanced, cluster heads in the networks are located to different regions according to their energy consumption. Certainly, the cluster heads nearby the base station, which consume energy excessively for relaying a mass of data, are denser than those in other areas. Therefore, the energy consumption of whole network would be balanced and subsequently, the lifetime of networks would be prolonged. The results of simulation experiments finally validate the correctness and effectiveness of this method.