Prolonging Network Lifetime via Intra-Cluster Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

An important challenge in wireless sensor networks (WSN) is that how to disseminate data packets from sensor nodes to base station energy efficiently. Inspiring data fusion, an outstanding feature of clustering approach, and multi-hop routing, in this paper, we propose a clustering approach called PLIR (Prolonging Network Lifetime via Intra-Cluster Routing) for saving energy and distributing data dissipation evenly by improving base station cluster formation algorithm of LEACH-Centralized and providing 3-hop routing algorithm within clusters. Hence, it prolongs the lifetime of the network. Our simulation results show that PLIR consumes less energy and reduces communication overhead, and extends the network lifetime compared with other approaches.