Distributed Clustering Approach for Wireless Sensor Networks Based on Hybrid Concept

Abstract

To diminish the data transmission time and energy consumption, the sensor nodes are assembled into a number of little groups referred as clusters and the phenomenon is referred as clustering. Every cluster comprise of a leader which is known as cluster head. The cluster head will be chosen by the sensor nodes in the individual cluster or be pre-assigned by the user. The main advantages of clustering are the transmission of aggregated data to the base station, offers scalability for huge number of nodes and trims down energy consumption. Fundamentally, clustering could be classified into centralized clustering, distributed clustering and hybrid clustering. In centralized clustering, the cluster head is fixed. The rest of the nodes in the cluster act as member nodes. In distributed clustering, the cluster head is not fixed. The cluster head keeps on shifting form node to node within the cluster on the basis of some parameters. Hybrid clustering is the combination of both centralized clustering and distributed clustering mechanisms. This paper gives a brief overview on clustering process in wireless sensor networks. A research on the well evaluated distributed clustering algorithm Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) and its followers are portrayed artistically. To overcome the drawbacks of these existing algorithms a hybrid distributed clustering model has been proposed for attaining energy efficiency to a larger scale.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), Distributed Clustering Algorithm, Coverage Based Clustering, Energy Efficiency, Network Lifetime