Energy-Efficient in wireless sensor networks using fuzzy C-Means clustering approach

Extending the lifetime of a wireless sensor networks remains one of the prominent research topics in recent years. Clustering has been proven to be energy-efficient in sensor networks since data routing and relaying are only operated by cluster heads. The present paper focuses on proposing two algorithms. In the former nodes organize themselves into clusters using fuzzy c-means (FCM) mechanism then a randomly node chooses itself cluster head in each cluster since initially all nodes have the same amount of power. Then the node having the higher residual energy elects itself cluster head. All non-cluster head nodes transmit sensed data to the cluster head. This latter performs data aggregation and transmits the data directly to the remote base station. The second algorithm which is a improvement of the former uses the same principle in forming clusters and electing cluster heads but operates in multi-hop manner when it routes data from cluster heads to the base station. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms improve energy consumption and consequently resulting in an extension of the network lifetime. In addition, the second algorithm proves its ability to be applied in large-scale wireless sensor networks.