An improved LEACH-based power aware routing protocol in wireless sensor networks

Sensor networks inherit unique technical challenges such as limited battery capacity and very primitive computing capabilities. To prolong the lifetime of the wireless sensor networks, energy efficiency is one of the most critical issues. Many routing protocols are developed to address this issue from different aspects. Related routing protocols can be classified into three categories: data-centric, hierarchical and energy aware. In this paper, we propose an energy aware routing protocol, negotiation and redundancy suppression mechanism (NRSM), for wireless sensor networks. NRSM takes different design disciplines such as signaling exchange, cluster-based hierarchy and data aggregation into considerations. Therefore, proposed method not only extends the lifetime of the network, but also improves the system efficiency and stability. Additionally, signaling exchange also contributes to preventing packet loss to ensure the completeness of the sensed data. Simulation is conducted by a discrete event driven simulator written in C program. Numerical results show that our proposed NRSM scheme can greatly improve the network life time; furthermore, it enhances the system stability and the integrity of the sensed data.