Analysis of Setup Energy of LEACH Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

In Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) the sensor nodes are very much sensitive to the energy consumption. The reliable operation can be performed in the network (NW) by using hierarchical protocols for communication of data, which can conserve energy of nodes in network. LEACH is the basic protocol developed for the said purpose, in which the operation of network is performed in two steps, namely Setup phase and Steady state phase. Clusters of nodes are formed in setup phase and actual data transfer from network to base station is done in steady state phase. The cluster head (CH) will need more energy for regular communication with cluster members as well as base station so its energy depletes quickly. To balance the energy consumption, CH responsibility is rotated and a new cluster is set up in each round. If the setup phase is to be executed frequently it will cause wastage of energy in the overhead operation. In this paper we analyze the proportion of the energy required in setup phase as well as steady state phase. It is found that the power requirement of both phases is near about same. We propose a new approach so that this overhead energy can be minimized. Keywords-wireless sensor network, dynamic clustering, cluster head, energy efficiency, heterogeneous nodes.