ENERGY EFFICIENT MULTI LEVEL AND DISTANCE AWARE

CLUSTERING MECHANISM FOR WIRELESS SENSOR

NETWORKS

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
by

AMJAD MEHMOOD
CS420112001

Supervisor-I Dr. Shafiullah Khan Institute of information Technology

KUST, Kohat

..............
Signature

Supervisor-II

...............
Signature

Dr. Bilal Shams

Institute of information Technology

KUST, Kohat

Institute of Information Technology

Kohat University of Science & Technology, Kohat-2600, KhyberPakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

August, 2014

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This thesis entitled ENERGY EFFICIENT MULTI LEVEL AND DISTANCE

AWARE

CLUSTERING

MECHANISM

FOR

WIRELESS

SENSOR

NETWORKS submitted by MR. AMJAD MEHMOOD to the Kohat University of

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This thesis entitled ENERGY EFFICIENT MULTI LEVEL AND DISTANCE

AWARE CLUSTERING MECHANISM FOR WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
presents a bonafide record of original research work carried out by AMJAD MEHMOOD in partial fulfillment of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN
COMPUTER SCIENCE, Kohat University of Science & Technology, Kohat. We find
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The success and final outcome of this research required a lot of guidance and assistance
from many people and I am extremely fortunate to have got this all along the completion
of my research work. Whatever I have done is only due to such guidance and assistance
and I would not forget to thank them.
I respect and thank Dr. Shafi Ullah Khan, for giving me an opportunity to do the research
work in WSNs and providing me all support and guidance which made me complete the
research on time. I am extremely grateful to him for providing such a nice support and
guidance though he had busy schedule managing the office affairs.
I heartily thank our internal research supervisor, Dr. Bilal Shams, Director, Institute of
Information Technology, for his guidance and suggestions throughout my research work.
I owe my profound gratitude to Prof. Dr. Jaime LIoret, who took keen interest in my
research work and guided me all along, till the completion by providing all the necessary
information for developing a good system.
I would not forget to remember Mr. Abdur Rehman, Mr. Roman, Dr. Jawad Ashraf, Dr.
and Dr. Asad Habib, of Institute of Information Technology for their unlisted
encouragement and more over for their timely support and guidance till the completion of
my research work.
I am thankful to and fortunate enough to get constant encouragement, support and
guidance from all teaching staffs of Institute of IT which helped me in successfully
completing my research work. Also, I would like to extend our sincere regards to all the
non-teaching staff of my Institute for their support.

Amjad Mehmood.

No man
succeeds
without a good
woman behind
him. Wife or
mother, if it is
both, he is
twice blessed
indeed.
5

Dedicated to
my
mother
and wife

Summary

PhD Thesis

(2014)

By Amjad Mehmood
Institute of Information Technology, KUST, Kohat, Khyber PakhtunKhwa, Pakistan

The latest progresses and the amalgamation of micro electro-mechanical systems

technology,

integrated

circuit

technologies,

nanotechnology

and

microprocessor

hardware, wireless communication, ad-hoc networking, distributed signal processing, and

embedded systems have made the notion of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). It
enables the administrator to examine and act in response to a phenomenon in appropriate
surroundings. The WSNs consist of large number of small, low-cost, multi-functional
machines known as sensor nodes that have the capability to sense, process and
communicate with each other. The comfort of installation, economical cost, multifunctional, and ad-hoc character has illustrated WSN an interesting option for many
applications, such as health-care applications, environmental monitoring, transportation,
military practices, weather forecasting, safe-keeping applications, fire detection, real time
tracking, and so on. WSNs have some constraints such as memory, bandwidth, hardware,
and computation. The plan of this study is to recognize the limitations of WSN and
investigate their unplanned act of routing protocols. We propose Energy-Efficient Multilevel and Distance-Aware Clustering (EEMDC) mechanism for WSNs.

In

this

mechanism the network area is divided into three logical layers with respect to the BS.
The logical partition of the network area helps to bridge the problem of distributing
workload among clusters in the network. Similarly, in order to enhance the performance
of the protocol, it selects the Cluster Head (CH) by acquiring the average residual energy
divided by average hop-count values of the nodes. It derives combined data to BS by
practicing minimum CHs as relay nodes.
In order to demonstrate the overall network lifetime, an experiential inspection has been
conducted in OMNET++. It is an object oriented modular discrete event based simulator
vi
i

having Castalia-3.2 as plug-in for WSN and Body Area Network (BAN). We simulated
different routing protocols, taking into consideration their challenges and the results are
shown. Different results show that EEMDC is more energy-efficient as compared to
other existing conventional protocols, such as Minimum Transmission Energy (MTE),
Direct, Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH), Low Energy Adaptive
Clustering Hierarchy-Centralized (LEACH-C), A Hybrid, Energy-Efficient, Distributed
Clustering (HEED), and Dynamic Clustering and Distance Aware Routing Protocol
(DDAR).

Contents

PhD Thesis

(2014)

By Amjad Mehmood
Institute of Information Technology, KUST, Kohat, Khyber PakhtunKhwa, Pakistan

ACKNOWLEDGMENT............................................................................................................................IV
SUMMARY................................................................................................................................................. VI
CONTENTS................................................................................................................................................ IX
LIST OF FIGURES.................................................................................................................................. XII
LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................................................... XIV
LIST OF ACRONYMS............................................................................................................................. XV

CHAPTER # 01
INTRODUCTION
1.1 WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS............................................................................................................ 1
1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES....................................................................................................................... 4
1.3 OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH............................................................................................................. 4
1.4 PROBLEM STATEMENT......................................................................................................................... 6
1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THESIS................................................................................................................... 8

CHAPTER # 02
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................... 9
2.1.1 Applications of WSN....................................................................................................................... 14
2.2 WSNS ROUTING CHALLENGES COMPARED WITH OTHER WIRELESS NETWORK..................................16
2.3 ROUTING PROTOCOLS CLASSIFICATION............................................................................................. 18
2.3.1 Structure Base Routing Protocols................................................................................................... 21
2.3.2 Protocol Operation based Classification........................................................................................ 31
2.3.3 Sensor Node architecture based Classification...............................................................................39
2.3.4 Packets Destination based Classification......................................................................................40
2.3.5 Source -Destination Recovery based classification.........................................................................43
2.3.6 Cooperative Routing.......................................................................................................................44
2.3.7 Protocols initialization point based classification.........................................................................44
2.3.8 Epidemic behavior based Classification.........................................................................................45
2.3.9 Application based routing protocols Classification.........................................................................46
2.3.10.....................................................................................................K. Sha et al. based Classification
46
2.3.11................................................................................................M. Perillo et al. based Classification
46
2.3.12.................................................................................................................State based Classification
47
2.3.13.................................................................Energy-Efficient Routing Protocols based Classification
48
2.4 DISTINCTIVENESS OF CLUSTER BASED ROUTING PROTOCOLS............................................................61
2. 5 ROUTING CHALLENGES AND DESIGN ISSUES....................................................................................61
2.5.1 Node Placement.............................................................................................................................. 62
2.5.2 Energy Utilization without Losing Precision..................................................................................62
2.5.3 Data Reporting Model....................................................................................................................63
2.5.4 Node/Link Heterogeneity.................................................................................................................63
2.5.5 Fault Tolerance...............................................................................................................................64
2.5.6 Scalability....................................................................................................................................... 64
2.5.7 Network Dynamics..........................................................................................................................65
2.5.8 Transmission Media........................................................................................................................65
2.5.9 Connectivity.................................................................................................................................... 65

1
0

2.5.10.......................................................................................................................................... Coverage
66
2.5.11.............................................................................................................................Data Aggregation
66
2.5.12...................................................................................................................Quality of Service (QoS)
66
2.5.13.................................................................................................................................... Network Cost
67
2.6 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS.........................................................................................................................67

CHAPTER # 03
ENERGY-EFFICIENT MULTI-LEVEL AND DISTANCE-AWARE
CLUSTERING MECHANISM FOR WSNS
3.1 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................. 85
3.2 EEMDC OPERATION...........................................................................................................................87
3.2.1 DATA TRANSMISSION FROM CLUSTER HEAD TO THE BASE STATION................................93
3.2.2 FLOWCHART OF THE EEMDC OPERATION.............................................................................93
3.3 SIMULATION RESULTS......................................................................................................................99
3.3.1 Network and Radio Model..............................................................................................................99
3.3.2 Simulation Model..........................................................................................................................101
3.3.3 Performance Evaluation...............................................................................................................102
3.4 CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................120

CHAPTER # 04
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
4.1 CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................................................ 122
4.2 FUTURE WORK......................................................................................................................................125

BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................................................................................................. 126

1
1

List of Figures
Figure 1.1. Workflow of wireless sensor network..............................................................................................1
Figure 1.2. Cluster based strategy for WSNs......................................................................................................3
Figure 1.3. A round in cluster based protocols...................................................................................................4
Figure 2.1.Sensor node components.................................................................................................................10
Figure 2.2. Routing protocols in WSNs............................................................................................................21
Figure 2.3. Single-hop and multi-hop connections to the sink..........................................................................24
Figure 2.4. Categorization of different characteristics of clustering in WSNs..................................................30
Figure2.5. Directed diffusion scenario..............................................................................................................33
Figure 2.6. Directed diffusion: (a) interest propagation, (b) initial gradients set up, and (c) data delivery...34
Figure 2.7. Query plan at a bellwether node: The bellwether node acquires all the understandings,
determines the average and if it is more preponderant than a threshold throw it to the BS..............................35
Figure 2.8. Categorization of routing protocols................................................................................................40
Figure 2.9. Percentage of number of nodes death vs. number of rounds in the area of 50m*50m...................70
Figure 2.10. Percentage of nodes death vs number of rounds in the area of 100m* 100m.............................71
Figure 2.11. Number of rounds over number of nodes alive............................................................................73
Figure 2.12 (a) . Number of rounds against number of data messages received..............................................74
Figure 2.12 (b). Average energy dissipation against number of data messages received.................................75
Figure 2.13. Average energy dissipation over varying network areas..............................................................77
Figure 2.14. Number of nodes alive as a function of network area..................................................................78
Figure 2.15. First node death over the simulation time [seconds]....................................................................79
Figure 2.16. Total 100 nodes: half node die (HND) over the simulation time [seconds].................................80
Figure 2.17. Total 100 nodes: last node die (LND) over simulation time [seconds]........................................81
Figure 2.18. Energy consumed by nodes over simulation time [seconds]........................................................82
Figure 2.19. Number of nodes alive over simulation time [seconds]...............................................................83
Figure 2.20. Energy utilized by nodes over simulation time [seconds]............................................................84
Figure 3.1. LEACH protocol's round details (Adv CH: Advertisement advertise by CH, TDMA Sch:
TDMA Schedule).............................................................................................................................................. 86
Figure 3.2. Message flow in a cluster (FLC)....................................................................................................91
Figure 3.3. EMCDR protocol's logical division in levels (TLC, SLC, FLC)...................................................92
Figure 3.4. Flowchart of EMCDR working......................................................................................................95
Figure 3.5. Calculate hop-count and cluster level.............................................................................................96
Figure 3.6. Sending data to the BS considering minimum hop........................................................................97
Figure 3.7. EEMDCs algorithm: process of clustering in WSNs....................................................................99
Figure 3.8. Total 100 nodes: first node die (FND) over simulation time [seconds].......................................105
Figure 3.9. Total 200 nodes: first node die (FND) over simulation time [seconds].......................................105

xi
i

Figure 3.10. Total 100 nodes half node die (HND) over simulation time [seconds]......................................106
Figure 3.11. Total 200 nodes half node die (HND) over simulation time [seconds]......................................107
Figure 3.12. Total 100 nodes: last node die (LND) over simulation time [seconds]......................................108
Figure 3.13. Total 200 nodes: last node die (LND) over simulation time [seconds].......................................109
Figure 3.14. Energy consumed by nodes over simulation time [seconds]......................................................110
Figure 3.15. Number of nodes alive over simulation time [seconds].............................................................111
Figure 3.16. Percentage of node death vs number of rounds in the area of 50m* 50m..................................113
Figure 3.17. Percentage of node death vs number of rounds in the area of 100m* 100m..............................114
Figure 3.18. Number of rounds over a number of nodes alive........................................................................115
Figure 3.19 (a). Number of rounds over a number of data messages received................................................116
Figure 3.19 (b). Number of rounds over number of data messages received..................................................117
Figure 3.20. Network Area over number of nodes alive..................................................................................118
Figure 3.21. Network area over average energy dissipation............................................................................120

13

LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1. Applications of WSNs......................................................................................................................16
Table 2.2. Routing protocols classification.......................................................................................................21
Table 2.3. Hierarchical vs. flat topologies routing............................................................................................25
Table 2.4: Energy consumption by nodes as either useful or wasteful source..................................................48
Table 2.5. Summary of the most important features of the routing protocols included in this section.............60
Table 2.6. Simulation parameters for Figure 2.11 and Figure 2.12...................................................................68
Table 2.7. Percentage of node death over network area of 50m *50m and 100m*100m.................................69
Table 3.1. Clustering protocols categorization parameters................................................................................86
Table 3.2. Notation used in the equations.......................................................................................................101
Table 3.3. Network model parameters............................................................................................................102
Table 3.4. Percentage of node death over a network area of 50m *50m and 100m*100m............................112

1
4

List of Acronyms
Wireless Sensor Networks
Energy Efficient Multi Level and Distance Aware Clustering
Base Station
Cluster Head
Analog-to-Digital Converter
Quality of Service
Global Position System
Medium Access Control
Time Division Multiple Access
Mobile Ad hoc Network
Sensor Protocols for Information via Negotiation
Directed Diffusion
Rumor Routing
Stream Enable Routing
Gradient Based Routing
Threshold Sensitive Energy Efficient Sensor Network Protocol
Adaptive Periodic
Constrained Anisotropic Diffusion Routing
Low-Energy Adaptive Cluster Hierarchy
Leach-Centralized
Small Mecn
Geography Adaptive Fidelity
Self-Organization
Hierarchical Periodic Event-Driven and Query-Based
Power Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information System
Hierarchical PEGASIS
Hierarchical Energy Aware Protocol for Routing and Aggregation in Sensor
Networks
Simple Hierarchical Routing Protocol
Minimum Energy Communication Network
Small MECN
Geographic and Energy Aware Routing
Stateless Protocol for Real-Time Communication in Sensor Network
Stateless Non-Deterministic Geographic Forwarding
Single Winner Algorithm
Multi Winner Algorithm
Sensor Nodes
Distance Source Routing
Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector Routing
Ad hoc on Demand Distance Vector Routing
Greedy/ Geographic Forwarding
Face Routing
Attributes
Soft Threshold
Hard Threshold
Court Time
Heterogeneous Heed
Reactive Energy Decision Routing Protocol
Scaling Hierarchical Power-Efficient Routing
Simple Energy-Efficient Routing
Balance Energy-Aware Routing
Dynamic Clustering And Distance Aware Routing Protocol
First Node Death

WSNs
EEMDC
BS
CH
ADC
QoS
GPS
MAC
TDMA
MANET
SPIN
DD
RR
SER
GBR
TEEN
APTEEN
CADR
LEACH
LEACH-C
SMECN
GAF
SOP
HPEQ
PEGASIS
H-PEGASIS
HEAP
SHRP
MECN
SMECN
GEAR
SPEED
SNGF
SWE
MWE
SN
DSR
DSDV
AODV
GF
FR
A
ST
HT
CT
H-HEED
REDRP
SHPER
SEER
BEAR
DDAR
FND

15

Last Node Death

Half of The Nodes Alive
Minimum Transmission Energy
Distance-Energy Cluster Structure Algorithm
Hierarchical Routing Protocol
Low Energy And Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy
Partition Based Leach
Power Efficient And Adaptive Clustering Hierarchical
Hybrid Energy Efficient Distributed
Energy Efficient Heterogeneous Clustered Scheme For Wireless Sensor
Networks
Tree-Base Clustering Protocol
Energy Efficient Clustering Scheme
Dynamic Clustering And Distance Aware Routing Protocol
First Level Clusters
Second Level Clusters
Third Level Clusters
Average Hop-count Value
Nodes Energy
Single Hop, Multi Hop
Cluster Member
Average Residual Energy

LND
HNA
MTS
DECSA
HRP
LEACH
pLEACH
PEACH
HEED
EEHC
CBT
EECS
DDAR
FLC
SLC
TLC
AvgHcv
NdeEnergy
SH ,MH
CM
AvgRE

1
INTRODUCTION

PhD Thesis(2014)

By Amjad Mehmood
Institute of Information Technology, KUST, Kohat, Khyber PakhtunKhwa, Pakistan

1.1 Wireless Sensor Networks

Due to recent advancements in electronic circuitry, WSNs have achieved great interest of
academia and industries. They are deployed in harsh and unattainable environments. A
WSN is made up of large number of sensing devices called nodes, which are associated
wirelessly. Each node in a network consists of short memory, low Central Processing
Unit (CPU) power, limited battery, and transceiver device for sending and receiving data.
Its size and cost depends upon the application. In a sensor network, all the nodes work in
such a manner to get information from the physical environment, process it, and send the
information to the Base Station (BS) for making the decisions [1] as shown in figure 1.1.

BS
Internet and Satellite
Sensor Nodes

Sensor field

Figure 1.1. Workflow of wireless sensor network

The research community has proposed different types of routing protocols to decrease the
energy dissipation, and hence increases the battery life of the network. Intended for

energy efficiency among the nodes in WSNs, researchers proposed different types of
techniques such as tree, chain, grid, density, model, and minimum transmission.
However, it has been observed that cluster based protocols are more energy efficient as
compared to the mentioned techniques [3]. Cluster is defined as the collected works of
nodes into groups. In cluster based methodology, there are three main entities such as
CH, members, and BS. The CH collects data from the members. CHs then send the data
for decision making to BS as shown in figure 1.2.
The disadvantages of cluster based routing protocols are as follow:
There is a need to deploy an optimal number of CHs, otherwise, these protocols act same
as flat based protocols.
Division of nodes into clusters creates latency or delay in the network so it could affect
the throughput of the network.
Overlapping among the clusters should be minimized otherwise, it could also affect the
overall lifetime due to traffic congestion.
Nomination of the CHs could also affect the lifetime if we select the node having
minimum energy in cluster, it will get down sooner.
Clusters near BS consume more energy than the clusters far away, so they should
properly be managed to balance the workload among the clusters.
The size of the clusters does matter in energy consumption.
Intra and inter-clusters distances should also be regarded to save the rate of energy
consumption.

Cluster based routing protocols could be more energy effici nt if we address its
disadvantages.

Member of Cluster

Base Station(BS)

Cluster
Head(CH)
Shows flow of data

Figure 1.2. Cluster based strategy for WSNs

Cluster based routing protocol work in rounds. Each round consists of two phases, i.e.
setup and steady phases.
(i)

Setup phase
It is further subdivided into

(a) CH selection
(b) Formation of cluster

(ii)

Steady phase
It is further subdivided into

(a) Aggregation of data

(b) Communication of data
This mechanism is shown
in figure 1.3.

Round
H SelectionSetup Formation of Cluster
C Sate

Aggregation of DataData

Steady StateCommunication

Setup phase

Stead phase

Figure 1.3. A round in cluster based protocols

1.2 Research Objectives

The main objectives of this work are

To increase the lifetime of WSNs

To develop scalable, fault-tolerant, and load-balancing mechanism

To divide the whole network into multi-levels to avoid the funneling effect

To increase the throughput and decrease the delay

1.3 Overview of the Research

The research has the following features:

i.

Each node in WSNs has limited energy, and usually deployed in harsh
environments. Therefore, their energy cant be recharged incase of depletion. This
limited energy is used by the nodes for sensing, processing, and communication.
In comparison the communication process consumes more energy than the others.
Therefore, in order to increase the lifespan of network for sending the data from
sensor nodes to BS, energy-efficient routing protocol is highly demanded by the
environment.

ii.

In a network some nodes perform more tasks than others which could lead to
deplete their energy earlier. Hence, in order to distribute the workload among the
nodes in the network, load-balancing mechanism is required.

iii.

In steady phase, in the multi-hop scenario, the CHs away from BS send their data
using more than one CHs as a relay node. As more CHs are used as relay node, so
it would increase delay as well as minimize the lifetime of the overall network.
Therefore, less numbers of CHs are used as a relay node, in order to maximize the
lifetime and minimize the delay in sending the data from CH to BS.

iv.

It is the network of hundreds of thousands of nodes interconnected wirelessly with

each other. So in dense environment more than one node can sense the
phenomenon and send the data to the CHs. As a result, redundant data reaches the
CH, in case CH broadcasts the same data. It causes congestion on the channel,
and wastes the energy of the nodes. In order to fuse the redundant data,
aggregation is performed on the CH, to reduce the congestion and consume less
amount of energy of node which receives it.

v.

Each node in the network has an equal chance to become the CH of the cluster,
but the decision is made on the basis of residual energy of the nodes.

vi.

The distance between the nodes, the CH, and between the CHs and BS is also
considered in order to save the energy of the network. Otherwise it may cause
congestion on the channel which may result in consumption of the energy. Hence
it affects the overall performance of the system.

vii. As the network consists of large numbers of nodes, therefore, keeping the whole
routing table at individual node is difficult, and it also makes use of high
bandwidth during communication. Therefore, clustering technique makes the
routing table localized to the cluster and also makes use of limited bandwidth due
to inter-cluster communication to CHs.
viii. Clustering mechanism helps to achieve scalability factor. It handles large number
of nodes in the network and their associated functions and tasks. Hence it helps to
scale to such a high level to acquire advantage of high density of such network.
ix.

Nodes in WSNs are more prone to unexpected failure as compared to other

networks. The clustering mechanism brings the fault tolerance ability to the nodes
in the network, so that they may sustain for longer periods of time.

1.4 Problem Statement

WSNs have several design and implementation challenges, primarily due to insufficient
resources and restricted abilities such as processing, storage, bandwidth, sensing,
communication, and scalability. However, one of the most important constraints in WSNs
is the battery or lifetime of the sensor nodes. The routing protocols are divided into two

main categories such as flat, and cluster/hierarchical based protocols. Flat based protocols
have following shortcomings:

They consume more energy.

They are less scalable.

They produce high data transmission, which may result in network congestion.

They cant perform load balancing.

Hierarchical or Cluster based protocols have the following shortcomings:

Clusters near BS consume more energy as compared to cluster away from BS.

The distances between member nodes and CH and to BS onward also play an
important role in energy dissipation.

Overlapping of the clusters also affects the lifetime of a network.

The size of clusters does matter as moving away from BS.

The number of nodes in a cluster is also one of the concerns of energy

dissipation.

The CH responsibility on the nodes is one of the factors to consume energy.

As CHs might have redundant data in their ranges which need to be aggregated,
otherwise consume energy due to propagating of redundant data in the network.

The CHs Send the data to BS over the CHs as relay nodes in multi-hop
communication could affect the lifetime of the network.

By considering the above mentioned problems of flat and cluster based protocols, it is
desirable to design an energy-efficient routing protocol. Therefore, we proposed EEMDC
routing protocol which is more energy efficient than the existing protocols. It helps

reduce the energy consumption by dividing the nodes of the network into many small
segments. Moreover, cluster based protocols constraints are addressed in EEMDC by
organizing clusters in multi-level with respect to BS. This can further enhance the
performance, energy load-balancing, scalability and the network- lifetime of the sensor
nodes in the network.

1.5 Organization of Thesis

The chapter-wise organization of the thesis is as follows:
Chapter 2: discusses the energy efficient communication protocols for WSNs suggested
by the research community.
Chapters 3: gives details of the contributions in regards to energy efficient routing
protocol for wireless sensor networks.
Chapter 4: explains the conclusions drawn out of the thesis and directions for future
work of the research.

2
LITERATURE REVIEW

PhD Thesis(2014)

By Amjad Mehmood
Institute of Information Technology, KUST, Kohat, Khyber PakhtunKhwa, Pakistan

2.1 Introduction
The distributed nature and dynamic topology of WSNs

introduces very special

requirements in routing protocols that should be met. The most important feature of a
routing protocol, in order to be efficient for WSNs, is the energy consumption and the
extension of the network's lifetime. Many routing, power management, and data
dissemination protocols have been specifically designed for WSNs where energy
awareness is an essential design issue. Routing protocols in WSNs might differ
depending on the application and network architecture. Consequently, the WSNs are
usually application specific. The most important are military, environment- monitoring,
agricultural-activities, industry, healthcare, cardiac, weather monitoring, sleep-apnea,
disaster-recovery, temperature, security, sound, and water applications [3]. With the
advancement in the technology, the nodes in the WSNs become more accurate, reliable,
energy efficient, smaller in size, cheaper in cost, and robust. This technology has already
addressed different types of applications from fortification to support. It is cost-effective,
easy to install, changes with industry needs, and its uses are countless. It comprises of
small nodes with inadequate processing, storing, sensing, bandwidth, and energy (or
battery power) for communication. Each sensor device consists of a microcontroller for
processing, one or more flash memories to keep long-lived data and program-code, for
dynamic data it needs RAM, for communication it needs wireless-transceiver, an analogto-digital converter (ADC), one or more sensors, power source, and an antenna. Consider
the example of MicaZ mote of Crossbow, it has an Atmel Atega microcontroller, 4KB
RAM , 128KB program flash , 512KB flash memory, IEEE 802.15.4 2.4-GHz transceiver

supports 250 KBps maximum, and 50 meters of range, ADC supports 10-bit, and runs
two AA batteries which draw 8 mA in active mode [4].
It has the capability to correspond with each other and drive their info to the sink or put
on the air the data to BS directly. The BS is the place which has no resource constraint
like processing, storing, power supply, and others. Once the data arrives on BS, it moves
the data collected from WSNs to internet, where users take a decision accordingly as
shown in figure 2.1.

BS

Internet/
Satellite

User

Position Finding System

P
o
w
er
U

S
e
n
A
D

Mobilizer

Processing

Tr
a
n
sc
ei

Storing

Figure 2.1.Sensor node components

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0

They are deployed sparsely or densely to the field depending on application requirements
and environment of deployment field. Moreover, nodes are randomly or deterministically
installed. When the nodes are manually mounted then they are normally sparsely
deployed and work under the attended environments, e.g. bridge monitoring, or fire alarm
system. Since nodes are dropped from an airplane or helicopter in disaster affected areas
and work in unattended manner, they get the updates about the area, and make the rescue
squared more equipped about the situations.
In fact, the nodes in WSN have a number of limitations, but energy or battery life is the
most crucial one. Since, nodes are normally planted in the environments which are
unworkable for the user, i.e. battlefield, military surveillance, and moisture tracking,
therefore, recharge or replace of the battery is impossible. Hence, bring into being a huge
issue for network designers, to develop an energy proficient routing protocol for WSNs.
Additionally, sensor nodes are unable to work properly due to their unreliable and
breakable behavior, in order to fix such problem nodes are densely deployed in the
environment. Therefore, all the algorithms and protocols suggested by

research

community are mostly energy efficient to increase the functioning lifetime of the
network.
In the recent past years, a huge number of researches have been done in WSNs, which are
increasing the association, processing, and management of the sensor nodes in the
gathering of data from the environment. Sensor nodes have limited resources. Due to
limitations of the constraints and the installation of a huge number of nodes fabricates a
large number of design, management confronts, and focus to consider the energy
consciousness at all the levels of the protocol stack, e.g. at the network level, it is

considered that how energy-efficiently the data would be collected from the sensor motes
and routing to BS, in order to escalate the lifespan of the network.
By taking into account the inherited characteristics of WSNs, there are many types of
routing protocols which have been suggested by the research community. The directionfinding protocols are categorized into the following three groups:
Network Structure-wise
Protocol Operation-wise
Route Discovery-wise protocols.

The structure-wise category is further divided into the following sub-categories:

Flat-based
Hierarchical-based
Location-based

While routing protocols under the category of protocol operation categorized as the
following:
Multipath-based
Query-based
QoS-based
Negotiation-based
Coherent-based

 Negotiation-based.

In the flat-base routing protocols, each node has the likewise role and responsibility
without any discrimination in acquiring data from the environment, coordinate with each
other, and transferring data to BS. In the cluster based protocols, nodes are collected into
clusters. Each cluster has a CH. Nodes in the cluster, collect data and launch their
information to the CH. CH after getting the data, appends its own data, and throws to BS
straightforwardly (single hop) or using relay CHs (multi hop) in transportation. While in
location-based routing protocol sensor nodes know their position in the network.
Therefore, instead of spreading the data in the entire network they send their data to the
destination directly. The last category of routing protocol is consisting of protocols
supported on the operation that depend upon the procedure used in the protocol. In multipath based routing nodes use multiple paths for sending their data which make the system
reliable and increase the performance of the network. In query-based protocol BS sends
query in the network, the node responsible for sensing and gathering data sends the data
to requested station or BS in response to that query. In QoS-based protocols consider
power capability and quality of the figures in the network. In negotiation-based protocols,
nodes focus on restricting the redundant information to transfer from the nodes to their
neighbors or the BS. In the coherent-based protocol nodes collect data and perform
minimum processing over it, and launch their records to aggregator for additional
processing. Whereas, the last category of routing protocols consists of route discovery
which is sub-divided into reactive, proactive, and hybrid schemes. The proactive routing
practices are also termed as table driven protocols. In these procedures paths are
calculated before the communication takes place between nodes and the sink. In the
reactive protocols paths were established at the time of communication. While in case of

hybrid protocols paths establishment takes place through the amalgamation of proactive
and reactive protocols. In this document, we explore the recent routing protocols as per
their category, in detail, to clear their understanding which in term open new research
directions in the field.

2.1.1 Applications of WSN

The sensor is the most demanding technology of day to day life, to track the sources and
send their data to the destination, without the need of any administrator. Its uses are
countless however the most significant applications against their fields are demonstrated
in Table 2.1.

Area
HealthCare
Applicatio
ns

Applications
Examine and take-care of patients [5, 6].
Health industry could save approximately 25$ billion if WSN
is incorporated in health care systems [7].
Sensor for blood pressure, oxygen measurement, blood flow,
respiration rate, Pulse oxy-meter, ECG (electrocardiogram)
[8].
Monitor the people's health condition and location [9].
Health-Gear is Microsoft research product. In the project sensor
nodes are connected to phone via Bluetooth device. It is real
time wearable system for analyzing and monitoring real time
physiological signal [10].
Mobi-Health is European commission funded project, which is
based on mobile health care. It monitors the patients during
health monitoring using GPRS and UMTS networks [11].
Artificial Retina [12].

 Glaucoma Patient [14].

Military
Applicatio
ns

Object Tracking [15].

Military monitoring (MILMON) [16].
This application informs the commander about the battlefield,
and helps to take the better decision to save their soldiers [17].
It is the application for crucial tasks, such as equipment
management, damage assessment and supply management
[18].

Emergenc
y
Applicatio

It works in hazardous circumstances specially use in battle [19].

Disaster Recovery applications named as CodeBlue [20].
Fire crisis discovery and reply for construction surroundings is
a new application area for the operation of WSNs [21].
FireGuide [22].

ns

Fire and water detectors [23].

Agricultur

The wireless Vineyard [24, 25] is the Intels project in which

al
Applicatio
ns
Environmen
tal
Applications

motes are planted on vine plants in a vine-yard.

Use of WSN provides accurate amount of water to
agricultural activities, which consumes 70% of world wide
water [26].
Francois Depienne, is a project for moisture tracking [27].
Study the animals without alarming
them o Great Duck Island network
[28]. o ZebraNet [29].
Fellow-Me [30].
WSN based Storm and Weather gathering application [31].
Examine volcanic and seismic actions [32].
Security applications [33].

Industrial
Applicatio

Place sensors inside the machine and measure the attributes

such as heat and vibrations [34].
WSNs are used to safe the employee in many industries [35].

ns

Keep control the industry process and automation [36].

Invento

Suppliers ensure the safety of gas cylinders [37].

Inventory management to Storage Silo, named as AnyBridge [38].

ry
Trackin
g
Smart Spaces

Gas Cylinder Management [39].

CityNet application to monitor the air quality in Urban Areas
[40].
Smart-M3 [39] interoperable platform for smart devices [41].
In Smart homes integrated systems work together and
inform home what they are doing and respond them

Process
Monitori
ng

accordingly [42].
Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) it is the
combination of both engine of business working and WSN
[43].
Graphic Workflow Execution Language for Sensor
Network (GWELS) process model helps to understand the
services oriented programming paradigm for sensor
networks, hence makes easy to develop and integrate with
sensor network applications [44].
Table 2.1. Applications of WSNs

2.2 WSNs Routing Challenges Compared with other Wireless Network

There are number of routing challenges which differentiate WSNs from other wireless
networks e.g. mobile-ad-hoc, or wireless mesh networks due to its characteristics [47].
It is an overhead to maintain a large number of IP (Internet base protocol scheme) due
to length of sensor nodes in the network.

It works un-attended while other networks need administrator or the same.

In WSN data is more important than who has sent the data( no need of IP)

Flow of data has always been from the sensor nodes to BS, no other way possible like
peer to peer or multi-cast techniques.

Sensor nodes unlike the other networks have limited processing, storing, battery,
therefore, need intensive management of the resources

Nodes remain fixed after deployment, but in some application they are allowed to
move but with very low mobility, while in other network nodes are free to move,
resulting in frequent change in the topologies.

They are application specific, their requirements of design change to the application.

Sensor nodes normally read one phenomenon, therefore, redundant information flow
in the network. So such redundancy filtered out in order to better utilize the
bandwidth channel.

They are normally data-centric networks, in which facts are sensed based on specific
characteristics called as attribute-based addressing.

Nodes in WSN must know their position because on the basis of position information
is collected. In order to get the position,

GPS (Global Positioning System) hardware is not a feasible solution in term of cost,
energy, and physical constraints. There are large numbers of GPS free solutions
suggested by the researchers.

Sensor nodes are deployed once in their whole lifetime.

2.3 Routing Protocols Classification

The node-to-node communication between the devices takes place at the network layer.
This means that two systems can communicate with each other through an arbitrary
number of intermediate nodes called hops. Whereas transmission between two neighbors
takes place on data link layer, the routing decision in multi-hop communication is taken
on the network layer. As WSNs is a special branch of infrastructure-less environments,
therefore, it has to take all its decisions by its own. Consequently, each node in the
network could be a source of information or act as a router. Normally the nodes in the
network are the source nodes they collect data from their surroundings and send it to the
sink or BS, and depending on the applications, some acts as router nodes to relay the
information between arbitrary numbers of nodes. This makes simpler routing decisions,
notably.
Since there is a limited amount of energy available to each sensor node in the network,
therefore, MANET protocols cant be used to address the same problem of the WSNs.
Initially, some researchers applied the MANET protocols to WSNs problems, but due to
the application specific nature of the networks, they were failing to provide better results,
therefore, researchers of WSNs focus develop their own protocols as per the demands of
the application.
There are various types of classification for WSNs routing protocols presented in a
literature.

Network Structure
based Classification

i. Flat or Data-Centric based routing

ii.

Hierarchical or Cluster-based

routing iii.Location based routing

[48]
i.
Protocol Operation
based Classification
[49]

Multi-Path based routing

ii. Query-based routing

iii.Negotiation-based
routing
iv. QoS-based routing
v. Non-Coherent & Coherent data processing

Sensor Node
architecture based

based routing
i. Protocols work on Flat topology( In the network
all nodes are treated equally called as
homogeneous)

Classification [49]

ii. Protocols work on hierarchical topology (in the

network some nodes have more responsibilities
than the others are called as Heterogeneous)
i. Gossiping and Agent based Unicast Forwarding
ii. Energy-efficient unicast

Packet Destination

iii. Broadcast and Multi cast

based Classification

iv. Geographic routing

[50]
Source -Destination
Recovery based

v.Mobile nodes
i. Proactive
ii. Reactive
iii. Hybrid

classification [51,48]
Cooperative Routing [52]

i. The technique in which sensor nodes send

their data to central node that combines the
data to diminish the energy consumption.

Protocols initialization
point based classification
[48]
Epidemic behavior
based Classification

ii. Source-initiated (Src-initiated)

iii.Destination-initiated (Dst-initiated)

i. Pull-based epidemic algorithm

ii. Push-based epidemic algorithm
iii.Pull-push based epidemic algorithm

[53]
Application based routing
protocols Classification

i. Query-based WSN applications

ii. Event-driven based applications
iii.Periodic WSN applications

[54]
K. Sha et al
based

i. Greedy geographic Routing

ii. Load-balanced Routing
iii. Energy aware Routing

Classification[5

iv. Fault tolerant Routing

5]

v. Information exploiting Routing

M. Perillo et al

i. Resource-Aware Routing

based

ii. Energy-aware Routing

iii. Fidelity-aware Routing

Classification[56]

iv. Data-Centric Routing

v. Geographic Routing
vi. Clustering

State based Classification

[57]

i. Stateful ad hoc Routing

ii. Stateless Geometric ad hoc Routing

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Energy-Efficient
Protocols for energy
Routingefficiency,
Protocols based
which manage
Classification
the communication
[58]
power plane
Protocols that take decisions on the bases of power maximization objectives.
Protocols that take care of network topology by determining which nodes should

Table 2.2. Routing protocols classification

Routing Protocols in WSN

Network Structure

Route Discovery

Flat Based

Reactive Protocol

Hierarchical

Proactive Protocol

Location Based

Protocol Operation

Negotiation Based Routing

Multi-Path Based Routing
Multi-Path Based Routing

Hybrid Protocols
Coherent Based Routing
QoS Based Routing

Figure 2.2. Routing protocols in WSNs

2.3.1 Structure Base Routing Protocols

It is one of the divisions of routing protocols of WSNs, which is further divided into flat,
hierarchical, and location predicated routing protocols. Under this category, protocols are
quantified with regard to design structure of the network area.
i.

Flat or Data Centric based Routing

ii.

Hierarchical or Cluster based Routing

iii.

Location based Routing

i. Flat or Data Centric based Routing
In this type of routing technique, every node has the same responsibility for sending,
receiving, and communicating, and mostly use flooding based technique for transferring
of data. Since flooding includes collapse, which occurs due to duplicate messages being
sent to the same node. In flat based protocols overlapping occurs when two or more
nodes sense the same area, and put on the air their packets to the same neighbor node.
This resource blindness could cause to consume large amount of energy. Similarly, in flat
based network nodes work together to accomplish the job of sensing. As in WSNs have a
sizable voluminous quantity of nodes as compared to other networks, therefore, it is not
feasible to give a unique address to each node. In order to address the problem, data
centric routing is started, in which BS transmits the queries to a specified area in the
network and waits for their acknowledgement. Since the information is being
acknowledged in the course of inquiries, therefore, an attribute supported naming is
necessary to indicate the properties of data. They require no topology organization. The
Flat based protocols are classified as follows:
Sensor Protocols for Information via Negotiation (SPIN)
Directed Diffusion, Rumor Routing
Stream Enable Routing
Gradient based routing
Threshold sensitive Energy efficient sensor network protocol (TEEN)
Adaptive periodic (APTEEN)

 Constrained Anisotropic Diffusion Routing (CADR).

ii. Hierarchical or Cluster based Routing

In this brand of protocols nodes are grouped into clusters, in order to address the
problems of scalability and energy efficiency of flat based protocols. Thus, in hierarchical
routing protocols, each node of the cluster communicates with its manager node typically
entitled as CH. Nodes in hierarchical routing protocols have different roles, i.e. CH and
non-CH nodes. The CH nodes have normally supplementary energy, as compared to the
regular sensor nodes. The CH nodes process and send the information to BS, while the
non-CH nodes are used to sense the physical phenomenon in the area. The hierarchical
routing technique is used to develop energy efficient, scalable, and reliable protocols for
WSNs. It is also an efficient way to downsize the energy utilized in the cluster. The
hierarchical protocols help to reduce collision in the wireless channel and make easy the
work cycles of sensor motes, which in turn amplify the overall existence of the network.
The advantage of the clustering protocols is to aid in the improvement of routing
protocols, but it might follow longer routes as compared to the flat based protocols. The
CH in clustering process also performs aggregation on sensors collected data, because
data might be coming from the overlapped region, before passing the information to the
sink. The passing of records to BS is performed by the following two ways, i.e. singlehop or multi-hop. In the single-hop CH passes the statistics to BS directly, while in multihop CH uses relay CHs to convey the facts to BS. Following are examples of routing
protocols, i.e.
Geography Adaptive Fidelity (GAF)
Self-Organization (SOP)

 Hierarchical Periodic, Event-driven and Query-based (HPEQ)

Power Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information System (PEGASIS)
Hierarchical PEGASIS
Hierarchical Energy Aware Protocol for routing and Aggregation in Sensor
networks (HEAP)
SPAN, Simple Hierarchical routing protocol (SHRP).

( a ): Single-Hop

( b ): Multi-Hop

Member of Cluster

Cluster Head(CH)

Sink
Shows flow of data

Figure 2.3. Single-hop and multi-hop connections to the sink

a) Hierarchical or Cluster based Routing Protocols are classified as follows

In this segment we discuss different features of cluster based routing protocols

Hierarchical Routing
Reservation-based scheduling

Flat Routing
Contention-based scheduling

Collisions avoided

Collision over-head in attendance

Reduced duty cycle due to periodic

sleeping

Changeable duty-cycle by governing

sleep time of nodes

Data aggregation by cluster-head

Nodes on multi-hop pathway aggregate

in-coming data from the neighbors

Uncomplicated but non-optimal routing

Routing can be made best possible but

with an added complications.

Call for global and local synchronization

Without synchronization, Links are

created on the fly

Operating cost of cluster formation

throughout the network

Routes formed only in

areasfor communication
data

Lower latency as multiple hops network

formed by CHs always available

Latency in coming around the

intermediate nodes and placing up the
multipath

Energy dissipation is regular

Power dissipation trusts traffic models

Energy dissipation cannot be restricted

Power dissipation adjusts to traffic

models

Fair channel allotment

Fairness not certain

Table 2.3. Hierarchical vs flat topologies routing

that have

Cluster Formation Method

The cluster formation method consists centralized, distributed and hybrid. In the
centralized technique, there is a central body which takes the decision of forming clusters
and CHs, in the distributed approach each node runs its own logic to form clusters and
CH, while in hybrid approach combination of both the centralized and distributed
approaches are used to form clusters and CHs.

Cluster Formation Properties

Clustering process has the following properties for the formation of clusters. These are
the internal features of the clusters structure.

Count Clusters

This feature means to count total number of clusters formed in a round. In some cluster
approaches, selection of CH is done before deployment such formation is called as Fixed
selection, while in others, selection of CH takes place randomly, so it is called as Random
selection of CH.

Size of Cluster

It represents the length or distance of CHs members from the CH. In case the distance is
small, it saves energy dissipation and also reduces the load on the CH. In some cases this
distance is fixed, while in others it keeps on changing i.e. variable.

Density of Cluster

It is described as the proportion of the immense number of nodes in the cluster area and
cluster. The important, confront to diminish the energy burning-up in dense clusters. In

case of fixed clustering normally considers a sparse cluster, while in dynamic cluster, the
density of the cluster is variable.

Count Messages

It counts the total number of messages interchanged during the selection of CH. In case of
more messages exchanged, it consumes more energy. In most of the non-probabilistic
approaches, exchange of messages is required for the selection of CH, and in probabilistic
techniques there is no message exchange.

Stability

If the members of a cluster dont remain fixed, then that cluster is called as adaptive
cluster, otherwise it is called as fixed. The fixed Count of Clusters increases the stability
of a WSN.

Intra cluster communication

It means the communication which is performed in a cluster. It could be single or multihop. In Single-hop also called as Direct Link nodes send their data directly to CH, while
in multi-hop nodes in a cluster uses relay nodes to send their data to CH see figure 2.6.

Inter cluster communication

It indicates the communication between the CH/nodes and BS. If a CH doesnt have the
range to send the data to BS, then the cluster strategies make sure through intermediate
condition to route the data to BS.

CH- Potentials

The CH potentials in cluster strategies affect the system performance in-succession of

stability and lifetime of WSN. The following are some characteristics on the basis of
which CH strategies are differentiated.

Node Type

There are different types of nodes some are defined as CH before their deployment
because they have more energy at the beginning than the member nodes in a cluster,
while other CHs have the same energy as member nodes in a cluster.

CH Mobility

Some CHs are Mobile while others are Stationary. The Mobile CH changes its location
where there is a need to balance the workload, and hence helps to achieve the best
performance. In case of Static CH which remains in its place once deployed, so the
workload is divided among all the members of the CH, in order to achieve the
performance.

Role of CH

Role defines the operations performed by CHs. So CH performs aggregation, collection

of data from its members, and it also relays the information to BS.

CH Selection

CH selection can be before, or after deployment of the nodes of WSNs [8].

Probabilistic Based

CH is selected on the basis of probabilistic based techniques. In this technique each node
has predefined probabilistic approach to determine the initial CHs.

Non-Probabilistic Based

In the non-probabilistic based technique decision of the CH selection is supported on

outstanding power, degree and connectivity of the nodes in a cluster, Location based,
Position based Neighbor nodes, etc.

Formation of Cluster

The formation of CH takes place such that CH broadcasts the packet to their neighbors,
which comes under its radio range. After receiving the packet nodes acknowledge to the
CH, and hence cluster is formed. In case of single hop nodes forward their data to the CH
directly, although in multi-hop nodes transmit through neighbor nodes. In the figure 3
cluster based protocols parameters have been classified.

Characteristics of Clustering

Cluster
Formation Method

Centralized

Cluster Formation
Cluster
Formation
Properties
Properties

CH- Potentials
CH- Potentials

Count Clusters
Size of Cluster

Distribute
Density of Cluster

Hybrid

Node Type
CH Mobility

CH Selection
CH Selection

Formation of
Formation of
Cluster
Cluster

Probabilistic Based

Non-Probabilistic Based
Non-Probabilistic

Single-hop

Multi-hop

Role of CH

Count Messages

Stability
Intra cluster communication Inter cluster

Figure 2.4. Categorization of different characteristics of clustering in WSNs

iii.

Location Oriented Routing

Geographic or location-base routing protocols exercise the location information of the

sensor nodes to spread the information to the destination rather than the complete
network. Nodes establish their locality using localization schemes and algorithms, i.e.
localization techniques. Therefore nodes are connected using geographic information
instead of topological connectivity knowledge to formulate promoting decisions. In the
unicast position supported protocols sender nodes not only have the information of their
own, but the information of the destination nodes as well. It obtains the information
either through questioning e.g. flooding, an inquiry to the destination to send its position
or a location agent service that plans the nodes identity into their locations. Although in
multicast location based or broadcast guided routing protocols, the matching packet is
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0

disseminated to various targets. Moreover, multicast protocols have the benefit that they
have the knowledge of the sites of the motes which therefore minimize the consumption
of resource by dropping redundant links. In most location based protocols the location
message is exercised to determine the space linking the nodes to deduce the power
utilization. Since nodes are spatially organized in an area, and have no such scheme of
addressing like IP in regular networks. So the data are transmitted to all the motes that
stay alive in a specific geographic area. This approach, of access is called as geo-casting,
i.e. to diffuse query to certain region instead of flooding the whole network. This
technique saves both the energy as well as bandwidth of the channel which increase the
overall performance of the network. Once the packet arrives at the target, it could either
be disseminated to all the sensor nodes within the region which is called as multi-cast, or
transmits the packet to at least one node in the network, which is also called as any-cast.
As compared to other routing protocols, location based protocols want only the
geographic awareness and therefore not necessary to hold the routing table information
and also do not require to set up the back-to-back paths connecting senders and receivers,
hence avoid the requirement of administering message. Illustrations of location supported
routing procedures are Geographic Adaptive Fidelity (GAF), Minimum Energy
Communication Network (MECN), Geographic and Energy Aware Routing (GEAR), and
Small MECN (SMECN).

2.3.2 Protocol Operation based Classification

Its also an important component of routing protocols of WSNs. In the following group
of routing protocols are measured with respect to the operation of routing protocols and
they are categorized as follows [6].
3
1