Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 1 (2011) 195203

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Swarm and Evolutionary Computation

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/swevo

Regular paper

Energy-aware evolutionary routing protocol for dynamic clustering of wireless

sensor networks
Enan A. Khalil, Baraa A. Attea
Department of Computer Science, Baghdad University, Iraq

article info abstract

Article history: The main challenges in designing and planning the operations of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs)
Received 31 January 2011 are to optimize energy consumption and prolong network lifetime. Cluster-based routing techniques,
Received in revised form such as the well-known low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH), are used to achieve scalable
4 June 2011
solutions and extend the network lifetime until the last node dies (LND). Also, evolutionary algorithms
Accepted 20 June 2011
Available online 1 July 2011
(EAs), have been successfully used in recent years as meta-heuristics to address energy-aware routing
challenges by designing intelligent models that collaborate together to optimize an appropriate energy-
Keywords:
aware objective function. On the other hand, some protocols, such as stable election protocol (SEP), are
Clustering concerned with another objective: extending the stability time until the first node dies (FND). Often,
Energy-aware there is a tradeoff between extending the time until FND and the time until LND. To our knowledge,
Evolutionary algorithm no attempt has been made to obtain a better compromise between the stability time and network
Meta-heuristic lifetime. This paper reformulates the design of the most important characteristic of the EA (i.e., the
Routing protocol objective function), so as to obtain a routing protocol that can provide more robust results than the
Wireless sensor network existing heuristic and meta-heuristic protocols in terms of network stability period, lifetime, and energy
consumption. An evolutionary-based routing protocol is proposed, which can guarantee better tradeoff
between the lifespan and the stability period of the network with efficient energy utilization. To support
this claim, extensive simulations on 90 homogeneous and heterogeneous WSN models are evaluated
and compared against the LEACH, SEP, and one of the existing evolutionary-based routing protocols,
hierarchical clustering-algorithm-based genetic algorithm (HCR).
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have gained worldwide
attention in recent years, particularly with the proliferation of
Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, which has
facilitated the development of smart sensors. WSNs are used in
numerous applications, such as environmental monitoring, habitat
monitoring, prediction and detection of natural calamities, medical
monitoring, and structural health monitoring [14].
WSN is undergoing intensive research to overcome its com-
plexity and constraint challenges in terms of storage resources,
computational capabilities, communication bandwidth, and more
importantly, power supply [5,6]. The main components of a sensor
node and its associated energy consumption are depicted in Fig. 1.
Typically, sensor nodes are grouped hierarchically in clusters
(sections), and each cluster has a node that acts as the cluster head
(CH). All the nodes forward their sensor data to the CH, which in
turn aggregates data reports and routes them to a specialized node
Corresponding author. Tel.: +964 7801 614354.
E-mail addresses: enanameen@yahoo.com (E.A. Khalil), baraaali@yahoo.com
(B.A. Attea).
2210-6502/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.swevo.2011.06.004
called the sink node or base station (BS). The low-energy adaptive
clustering hierarchy (LEACH) protocol and the LEACH-Centralize
(LEACH-C) [7,8] are well-known hierarchical routing protocols in
WSN. They divide a WSN into dynamic clusters, each of which has
a CH being elected according to a priori optimal probability.
Although these LEACH-type schemes guarantee a well-
distributed energy load, their analytical results are based on the as-
sumption that the nodes of the sensor network are equipped with
the same amount of energy, which is the case of homogeneous sen-
sor networks. On the other hand, there are a lot of crucial WSN
applications that would highly benefit from understanding the im-
pact of equipping a percentage of the node population more energy
than the rest of the networks nodes to ensure that the feedback re-
sult from the network be more reliable or stable. For example, the
huge damage caused by the forest fire in Kentucky, USA, in 2007
(estimated to be multibillion US$) has motivated in developing a
new WSN solution that can work in a harsh environment with het-
erogeneous data and devices. In addition, there are also applica-
tions where the spatial density of the sensors is a constraint. By
assuming that with the current technology the cost of a sensor is
tens of times greater than that of the embedded batteries, it will
be valuable to examine whether the stability time (as measured
by the period from the start of the network operation until the
196 E.A. Khalil, B.A. Attea / Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 1 (2011) 195203
Fig. 1. Components of the sensor node and energy consumption for data
aggregation and communication task.
first node dies FND) could be increased by simply distributing
the extra energy to some existing nodes without introducing new
nodes [9]. To this end, several heuristic protocols were proposed in
the literature to cope with heterogeneity. The stable election pro-
tocol (SEP), then, weights the CH election probabilities according
to the initial energy of a node relative to that of the other nodes in
the network. SEP is proved to be more resilient than LEACH in ju-
diciously consuming the extra energy of the advanced (more pow-
erful) nodes [9].
Obviously, the clustering problem is considered as NP-hard,
where the arena of computational intelligence (CI) is widely uti-
lized for [1014]. Thus, different approaches of CI, including evo-
lutionary algorithms (EAs), swarm intelligence (SI), and more
recently, harmony search (HS), have been used as population-
based meta-heuristic optimization methods by different re-
searchers for energy-aware cluster-based routing. In [1521],
researchers drew attention to developing genetic cluster-based
routing protocols in WSNs. While their protocols succeeded in pro-
longing the WSN lifetime (the time interval from the start of the
network operation, until the last node dies LND) when compared
with LEACH performance, they failed to ensure a longer reliability
period until FND.
Usually, there is a tradeoff between the time until FND and
the time until LND. An optimal balance between these two
contradictory goals is a challenge, and is itself an optimization
process. Thus, fine tuning of the routing protocol parameters is
essential to improve the overall network performance. By careful
analysis of the genetic cluster-based routing protocols mentioned
in [1521] and more specifically in the context of their major
components, one can observe a common facet for the formalism
of two energy-reduction criteria. In the objective function, the
amount of energy can be mainly minimized based on two terms:
network distance and cluster count. The formulization of the
distance function has been addressed from an abstract perspective,
where the smaller the distance between any two nodes, the
lesser is the transmit power required to transmit the data. The
cluster count has been formalized in the fitness function either
directly or indirectly for the purpose of minimizing the total energy
consumption.
To our knowledge, no attempt has been made to get an
acceptable compromise between the stability period and the
network lifetime. This paper describes an evolutionary-based
clustering protocol for the routing problem in WSNs, where all the
transmissions are based on single-hop communication. The main
goal of this work is the formulation of a new objective function
that can have a significant impact on the overall performance of
the WSN. It is tailored to meet the following conflicting goals:
maximal stability period until FND, maximal network longevity
until LND, while at the same time, minimizing energy consumption
throughout the network lifetime. The rest of the paper is organized
as follows. In Section 2, related work in both heuristic and meta-
heuristic evolutionary-based directions is reviewed. The details of
the proposed protocol are discussed in Section 3. Simulation results
are presented and discussed in Section 4, and concluding remarks
are provided in Section 5.
2. Literature review
2.1. Heuristic protocols
In LEACH [7,8], a node elected as CH with a probability p and
each non-CH node determines its cluster by choosing the CH that
can be reached with the least communication energy. The role of
CH is rotated through all the sensors according to a random number
T between 0 and 1. A node becomes a CH for the current rotation
round if the number is less than the following threshold:
p
if s G
T ( s) = 1 p rmod 1p (1)
0 otherwise
where p is the desired percentage of the CH nodes in the sensor
population, r is the current round number, and G is the set of nodes
that have not been CHs in the last 1/p rounds.
While LEACH-type schemes assume homogeneous WSNs,
SEP [9] maintains hierarchical routing in heterogeneoussensor
networks, where a percentage of the sensor population is equipped
with extra energy than the rest of the normal sensors in the same
network. If the fraction of advanced nodes is m and the additional
energy factor between advanced and normal nodes is , then
pnrm = p/(1 + m) (2)
p
padv = (1 + ). (3)
(1 + m)
Hence, in SEP, the threshold in (1) is replaced by that for the normal
sensors, T (snrm ), and that for advanced nodes T (sadv ) as follows [9]:
pnrm
if snrm G
T (snrm ) = 1 pnrm rmod p 1 (4)
nrm
0 otherwise
padv
if sadv G
T (sadv ) = 1 padv rmod p 1 . (5)
adv
0 otherwise
where r is the current round, G is the set of normal nodes that
have not become CHs within the last 1/pnrm rounds of the epoch,
and T (snrm ) is the threshold applied to a population of n (1 m)
normal nodes. This guarantees that each normal node will become
a CH exactly once every 1/p (1 + m) rounds per epoch, and
that the average number of cluster heads that are normal nodes
per round per epoch is equal to n (1 m) pnrm . Similarly, G
is the set of advanced nodes that have not become CHs within
the last 1/padv rounds of the epoch, and T (sadv ) is the threshold
applied to a population of n m advanced nodes. This guarantees
that each advanced node will become a CH exactly once every
(1/p) (1 + m)/(1 + ) rounds.
2.2. Meta-heuristic protocols
As the clustering problem is proved to be an NP-hard problem,
diverse fields of methods such as evolutionary computation are
explored for proposing new algorithms. A detailed review of the
evolutionary clustering algorithms is provided in [22], together
with an investigation of application of Differential Evolution (DE)
as robust, fast and fully automatic clustering technique that can
circumvent the problems with the traditional clustering schemes.
In WSNs, CI and its main branch EAs have been tailored or
hybridized to suit several challenges. A detailed survey can be
found in [23]. In the present study, a review of the field of the
population-based meta-heuristic cluster-based routing in WSN
is carried out with a focus on evolutionary algorithms. In [15],
 E.A. Khalil, B.A. Attea / Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 1 (2011) 195203
the GA attempts to find appropriate CHs to minimize the total
network distance. It uses binary individual, I, representation, in
which each bit corresponds to one sensor node. 1 signifies that
the corresponding sensor is a CH; otherwise, it is a regular node.
The total transmission distance and the number of CHs Two are
subjected to minimization in this GA using a combined fitness
function GA .
GA (I ) = (TD D) + (1 ) (TN NCH )
where TD is the total distance of all the nodes to the BS, D is
the sum of the distances from the regular nodes to CHs plus the
sum of the distances from all the CHs to the BS, TN is the total
number of nodes, NCH is the number of CHs, and w is a pre-defined
weight. Except for D and NCH , all the other parameters are fixed
values in a given WSN topology. The shorter the D, or the lower
the number of NCH , the higher is the fitness value of an individual.
This GA attempts to maximize the fitness value to determine a good
solution.
In [16], a genetic clustering algorithm (GCA) is proposed for
the dynamic formation of clusters in WSN with the goal of
increasing network longevity by minimizing energy dissipation.
Each chromosome is represented as a fixed length list equal to the
size of the network. The gene value can be 1 indicating that the
corresponding node is dead, or a positive number referring to the
node number of its CH. The fitness function, GCA , formulated as the
minimization of (7), is composed of three parameters: number of
CH nodes (NCH ), network Euclidean distance between all the nodes
in each cluster to their CH (ND), and a system-dependent weight
(w ) for adjusting both NCH and ND in calculating the fitness value
for each chromosome, I.
GCA (I ) = NCH + (1 ) ND
In [1720], the authors extend the fitness function of [15] to
include additional parameters, such as the standard deviation of
the cluster distance (SD), the estimated transfer energy (E), and
the number of transmissions (T ), as given in (8). These parameters
ensure that the chromosomes (network configurations) that give
a maximum number of transmissions and have reduced energy
consumption are selected for future generations. As a result, their
hierarchical clustering-algorithm-based genetic algorithm (HCR)
with the extended fitness function, HCR , can provide more data
transmissions when compared with the GA presented in [15].
HCR (I ) = (i , fi ), fi {TD, D, E , SD, T }
i
where the direct distance (TD) is computed as the sum of all
the Euclidean distances from the sensor nodes to the BS. Cluster
distance (D) is the sum of the distances from the nodes to the CHs
and the distance from the heads to the BS. The variation in the
cluster distances (SD) should be tuned according to the deployment
information. If the deployment is uniform, the variation in cluster
distances will be a strong indicator of optimum clusters; however,
for random deployment, the variation in cluster distances will be a
weak indicator. The transfer energy, E, represents the total energy
consumed to transfer the aggregated message from the clusters to
the sink. For a cluster with k member nodes, the cluster transfer
energy (Ec ) sums up the energy required to transmit messages from
k member nodes to the CH with the energy required by the CH to
receive k messages from the member nodes and energy required
to transmit aggregated data from the CH to the sink. Finally, for
each data transfer stage, BS assigns the number of transmissions
T . The value of T is adjusted according to the network conditions
and current energy levels. Moreover, larger values of T indicate
that the outcome of GA will be used for a longer period of time.
While the initial fitness parameters are assigned arbitrary weights,
197
wi , subsequently, these weights are updated according to the best
fit chromosomes.
The fitness function of the GA in [21] includes, in addition
to the above-mentioned five parameters, two more parameters
concerning the remaining energy (RE) available in all the sensor
nodes of the clusters and the number of frame transmissions (FT ),
i.e., the frames received by the sink. The final fitness function can
then be formulated as
(6)
GA (I ) = (i , fi ), fi {TD, D, E , SD, T , RE , FT }. (9)
i
Other population-based meta-heuristic algorithms have also
been developed for the cluster-based routing problem in WSN.
Recently, the harmony search algorithm (HAS) [24] had been
developed for improving the longevity and reducing the energy
consumption in the clustered routing of WSNs [25]. The fitness of
a harmony solution is defined as
HSA (Solution) = w f1 + (1 w) f2 (10)
where f1 is themaximum Euclidean distance of the nodes,
defined as max{ nodei Ck d(nodei , CH k )/Ck }, and f2 is the ratio
of the energy of all the alive nodes in the network with the
total current energy of the CH in the current round, defined as
i=1 E (nodei )/ j=1 E (CH k ).
N k
3. The proposed energy-aware protocol
In an attempt to harness the strength of the evolutionary-
based routing protocol mentioned in Section 2 in terms of network
stability period, longevity, and energy consumption, this section
(7) will revisit and elaborate the most important component that
can constitute an effective evolutionary-based routing protocol,
the fitness function, and reformulate it again in a new robust
way. A centralized single-hop clustering protocol is presented
where the BS runs an evolutionary-based protocol to optimize the
CH election for cluster formation. To satisfy the EA conceptual
development, this section will present the characteristics of the
proposed EA-based protocols, viz. the energy-aware evolutionary
routing protocol (EAERP), in both informal and formal ways.
During the election phase, clusters are created using a
centralized evolutionary algorithm. An initial population of
individuals is generated and each individual is evaluated using
a fitness function. Then, these individuals will go through
(8)
evolutionary operators selection, recombination and mutation
with pre-determined probabilities to improve the quality of the
individuals. The evolutionary algorithm loop will continue until
the termination criteria satisfied. In the context of the EAs, a
complete clustered route solution is regarded as an individual, I.
For a WSN with N sensor nodes, the individual consists of N genes,
the alleles of which can be either 0 for non-CH nodes, 1 for CH
nodes, or 1 for dead (i.e., inactive) nodes with no energy (E). Then,
a population, I n , of n individual solutions can be formally specified
as
i {1, . . . , n} and j {1, . . . , N }
1 if E (nodej ) > 0 and nodej = CH
i
Ij = 0 if E (nodej ) > 0 and nodej = non-CH (11)
1 otherwise.
Each individual is randomly initialized with 1s and 0s according to
the probability p, presented in (1), of the desired percentage of the
CH nodes, as
1 if E (nodej ) > 0 and randomj = p
Ij = 0 if E (nodej ) > 0 and randomj > p (12)
1 otherwise.
198 E.A. Khalil, B.A. Attea / Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 1 (2011) 195203
This genotype representation implicitly facilitates the formation
of a dynamic number of CHs during the single and throughout
the whole rounds of the routing protocol. Associated with each
individual is a fitness (objective) value measured by a fitness
function, , which numerically quantifies how good that individual
is a solution to the routing optimization problem. It forms the
bridge between the routing problem itself and the evolutionary
algorithm. For EAERP, the proposed objective function is defined
as the minimization of the total dissipated energy in the network,
measured as the sum of the total energy dissipated from the non-
CHs to send data signals to their CHs, and the total energy spent
by CH nodes to aggregate the data signals and send the aggregated
signals to the base station. Formally speaking, the fitness function
used to evaluate individual, I k , k {1, . . . , n}, in EARP protocol
becomes
nc
nc
EAERP (I ) =
k
ETX s,CH + ERX + EDA
i
+ ETX CH ,BS
i
i=1 sci i =1
where nc is the total number of CHs, s ci is a non-CHs
associated to the ith CH node, ETX node1,node2 is the energy dissipated
for transmitting data from node1 to node2. Both the free space
and multipath fading channel models mentioned in [79] will be
used in this paper to compute the energy dissipated during the
process of transmitting (ETx ) and receiving information (ERX ). For
transmitting an l-bit message over a distance d, ETx is
l + Efs l d(node1, node2)2
E
elec
if d d0
ETX node1,node2 = (14)
E elec l + Emp l d(node1, node2)4
if d > d0 .
While ERx = Eelec l, where Eelec is the energy spent to operate the
transceiver circuit set to 50 nJ/bit, and Efs and Emp are the energy
expenditures for transmitting l-bit data to achieve an acceptable
bit error rate and are dependent on the distance of transmission
in the case of free space model and multipath fading model,
respectively. The values of these two parameters are set to Efs =
10 pJ/bit/m2 and Emp = 0.0013 pJ/bit/m4 , respectively. If the
transmission distance is less than the threshold d0 , the free space
model is applied; otherwise, the multipath model is used. The
threshold d0 is calculated by equating the two expressions in (14)
at d = d0 :
Efs /Emp .
d0 =
Another parameter also taken into account is the data aggregation
energy expenditure, which is set as Eda = 5 nJ/bit/message.
The next component of the proposed EAs is the selection
operator. It selects partners using binary tournament selection
from the current population and transfers them to the mating
pool for reproduction. To produce a mating pool of n parents, the
binary tournament selects the best individual from two randomly
selected individuals of the population set, and repeats this process
n times. A formal definition of this selection operator, S : I 2 I ,
is as follows: let Ii,r1 , Ii,r2 , i {1, . . . , n} bet two individuals,
and r1, r2 U {1, . . . , n} are two uniformly distributed random
numbers from the set {1, . . . , n}, then
if EAERP (Ii,r1 ) = EAERP (Ii,r2 )
Ii,r1
Ii =
Ii,r2 otherwise.
Recombination (R) and mutation (M) are the perturbation
operators, which can alter the routing solutions found in the
population. A proportion pc of pairs of parents in the selected
population are chosen for recombination. For each pair of parents,
two cut points, r1, r2, are randomly selected from the range
{1, . . . , N 1}, and the participating parent individuals, I1 , I2 , are
then swapped at alleles between these two points as follows:
R{pc } : I 2 I 2
I1 = (I1,1 , . . . , I1,r1 , I2,r1+1 , . . . , I2,r2 , I1,r2+1 , . . . , I1,N )
(17)
I2 = (I2,1 , . . . , I2,r1 , I1,r1+1 , . . . , I1,r2 , I2,r2+1 , . . . , I2,N ).
Each active allele in the new individuals is then mutated with
the probability pm . Once an allele is chosen for mutation, its value
is inverted from 0 to 1 and vice versa:
M{pm } : I I
(i {1, . . . , n} and j {1, . . . , N }) :
I i if Iji = 1 or random > pm (18)
Iji = j
1 Iji otherwise.
In each round of the routing protocol, the cluster formation
(13) phase generates an initial population of solutions, the fitness of
which is then evaluated and based on the fitness values, the parents
are selected to generate a new population via recombination and
mutation operators. This process is repeated until the termination
condition of the evolutionary algorithm occurs.
During the association phase, the phenotype of the best
individual, best_I, among the k individuals in the population
is considered as the clustering solution. best_I can be formally
specified as
@I I n : EAERP (I ) EAERP (best_I ). (19)
Then in best_I, each non-CH determines the cluster to which it
belongs by choosing the CH that requires the minimum energy
consumption. Formally speaking, let nc best be the number of CHs
elected by best_I, and let nodei , i {1, . . . N } E (nodei ) > 0 be
an active non-CH, then
j, k {1, . . . , nc best }
nodei Cj : d(nodei , CH j ) < d(nodei , CH k ) (20)
4. Simulation results
All the routing protocols (LEACH, SEP, HCR, and EAERP) are
implemented in MATLAB. The simulations were performed on six
groups of WSNs (WSNs#1, . . . , WSNs#6), each with 15 different
playground topologies. According to the heterogeneity of the
sensors, the simulations were performed on three types of WSNs.
(15) The first case assumes homogeneous sensor networks, (WSNs#1
and WSNs#4) while the second experiments (WSNs#2 and
WSNs#5) assume heterogeneous sensor networks with advanced
nodes of 10% and the third experiments (WSNs#3 and WSNs#6)
assume 20% heterogeneity. Moreover, half of the simulations
(WSNs#1, WSNs#2, and WSNs#3) assumes a center-located BS
(i.e., the maximum distance of any node from the sink is about
70 m), while the second half of the experiments (WSNs#4,
WSNs#5, and WSNs#6) assumes a corner-located BS (i.e., the
maximum distance of any node from the sink is about 141.42
m). Overall, the simulation results presented herein have been
averaged over 15 simulation runs for a total of 90 different WSNs.
Each sensor network is composed of 100 sensor nodes deployed
randomly with different distribution patterns in a playground
of 100 m 100 m sensor field (much of the WSN literature
(16)
assumes that the sensors will be randomly deployed). This signifies
that the horizontal and vertical coordinates of each sensor are
randomly selected between 0 and the maximum value of the
dimension. For fairness in comparison, the characteristics of the
networks and communication model used for the competent
protocol simulations are made identical as illustrated in [79,
1521]. Moreover, as the effect of the proposed fitness function
 E.A. Khalil, B.A. Attea / Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 1 (2011) 195203 199

Fig. 2. Average number of alive nodes versus rounds for WSNs#1. Fig. 4. Average number of alive nodes versus rounds for WSNs#3.

Fig. 3. Average number of alive nodes versus rounds for WSNs#2. Fig. 5. Average number of alive nodes versus rounds for WSNs#4.

(EAERP ) on the final performance of the algorithm is to be studied,

all other evolutionary components, including selection, crossover,
and mutation, of HCR, and EAERP are fixed to binary tournament
selection, two-point crossover with pc = 0.6, and mutation with
pm = 0.03, respectively. This permits investigation of the pure
effect of the fitness formulation on the final performance of the
implemented protocol. Furthermore, equal weights are used in
the fitness functions of HCR. The population size, n, is taken
as 20 and allowed to evolve for 20 generations. Finally, to
benchmark our routing protocol against other well-cited protocols,
the performance is compared in terms of the length of the
stability period (the time interval from the start of the network
operation until the first node dies, FND), network lifetime (the
time interval from the start of the operation until the last node
dies, LND), throughput as measured by the number of aggregated
packets sent from CHs to BS, and the total energy left in the
network. Additionally, the quantitative results that clarify the best
performance values are given in bold. Fig. 6. Average number of alive nodes versus rounds for WSNs#5.

4.1. Stability period and network lifetime
The results depicted in Figs. 213 qualitatively capture the
performance of the protocols for the six groups of WSNs. For the
graphs depicted in Figs. 813, each protocols bar-pair measures
the length of the period until FND (left bar) and the length of the
period until LND (right bar). For the WSN groups with the center-
located BS (i.e., WSNs#1, WSNs#2, and WSNs#3), the network
stability period provided by EAERP is superior over all other
protocols except SEP in one case, the heterogeneous WSNs#3.
EAERP extends the stable (i.e., reliable) region to about 10% and 20%
when compared with that of LEACH and HCR, respectively. Against
SEP, EAERP extends the stable region to about 10% for WSNs#1 and
3% for WSNs#2. On the other hand, SEP competes with EAERP with
3% gain for WSNs#3. However, one can observe that the additional
gain provided by the stable heuristic of SEP protocol over EAERP
can easily bewilder it on achieving the second objective, and can
end up with unacceptable network lifetime results.
With regard to the total network lifetime, EAERP is found to be
very favorably against all other protocols. When compared with
200 E.A. Khalil, B.A. Attea / Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 1 (2011) 195203

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0
LEACH SEP HCR EAERP

Fig. 11. Summary of FND and LND for WSNs#4.

3500

3000
Fig. 7. Average number of alive nodes versus rounds for WSNs#6.
2500
2500
2000

2000 1500

1000
1500
500

1000 0
LEACH SEP HCR EAERP

500
Fig. 12. Summary of FND and LND for WSNs#5.

0 4000
LEACH SEP HCR EAERP
3500
Fig. 8. Summary of FND and LND for WSNs#1.
3000
4500
2500
4000
2000
3500

3000 1500

2500 1000
2000
500
1500

1000 0
LEACH SEP HCR EAERP
500

0 Fig. 13. Summary of FND and LND for WSNs#6.

LEACH SEP HCR EAERP

Fig. 9. Summary of FND and LND for WSNs#2. when compared with SEP, EAERP gains 54%, 90%, and 83%
additional rounds for the three above-mentioned WSN groups,
4500 respectively, and when compared with the second evolutionary-
based protocol, i.e., HCR, EAERP gains about 15%, 20.4%, and 16%,
4000
respectively.
3500 With regard to the results of the second group of WSNs with
3000 a corner-located BS (i.e., WSNs#4, WSNs#5, and WSNs#6), one
can observe the following: in the beginning, LEACH, SEP, and
2500
HCR maintain a better performance than EAERP, yielding longer
2000 stability periods (over EAERP, LEACH gains about 30%, SEP gains
1500
from 30 to 45%, and HCR shows slight gains of no more than
8%.) Subsequently, EAERP recovers its performance, overtakes
1000
LEACH, SEP, and HCR via slowing down the rate of node death
500 throughout the network lifetime, while other protocols speed up
0
the death rate substantially. On an average, EAERP gains 40%50%,
LEACH SEP HCR EAERP 40%74%, and 14%18% when compared with LEACH, SEP, and HCR,
respectively. This can be returned back owing to the following
Fig. 10. Summary of FND and LND for WSNs#3. reason while examining the individual protocol runs. Although all
protocols distribute their CHs uniformly over the sensing field,
LEACH, EAERP extends the network lifetime by 54%, 67%, and 70% we found that the number of CHs elected by EAERP to be in the
for WSNs#1, WSNs#2, and WSNs#3, respectively. Furthermore, opposite region of the BS tends to be less than that elected by
 E.A. Khalil, B.A. Attea / Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 1 (2011) 195203 201

Table 1 Table 3
Average remaining energy over protocol rounds for WSNs#1 (with a maximum of Average remaining energy over protocol rounds for WSNs#3 (with a maximum of
2271 rounds). 4543 rounds).
%Rounds LEACH SEP HCR EAERP %Rounds LEACH SEP HCR EAERP

10 40.3711 40.3764 41.2637 42.2384 10 40.7604 40.7738 42.5367 44.4882

20 30.7434 30.7560 32.5298 34.4738 20 21.5177 21.5359 25.0850 28.9758
30 21.1195 21.1338 23.7940 26.7110 30 8.1012 5.0052 11.3594 14.4425
40 11.4972 11.5120 15.0677 18.9478 40 3.6840 0.8006 5.8076 7.9650
50 2.7247 2.7340 7.1228 11.2217 50 0.0648 0.0029 2.6678 4.9536
60 0.0002 0.0001 2.1915 4.6397 60 0.0 0.0 0.8447 2.3422
70 0.0 0.0 0.3431 1.1996 70 0.1449 0.7713
80 0.0023 0.2014 80 0.0033 0.1945
90 0.0 0.0159 90 0.0 0.0147
100 0.0 100 0.0

Table 2 Table 4
Average remaining energy over protocol rounds for WSNs#2 (with a maximum of Average remaining energy over protocol rounds for WSNs#4 (with a maximum of
4351 rounds). 2263 rounds).

%Rounds LEACH SEP HCR EAERP %Rounds LEACH SEP HCR EAERP

10 36.5559 36.6227 38.2891 40.1577 10 39.7868 39.7861 40.0382 40.4334

20 18.1266 18.2436 21.5801 25.3134 20 29.5728 29.5728 30.0718 30.8663
30 4.4469 2.3986 7.8332 11.0495 30 19.3579 19.3640 20.1080 21.3030
40 2.0847 0.1115 3.0678 4.4203 40 9.1509 9.1564 10.4513 12.2647
50 0.0870 0.0023 1.3183 2.7777 50 1.4219 1.3978 3.3675 5.4187
60 0.0 0.0 0.4095 1.5286 60 0.00063 0.0033 0.5426 1.7576
70 0.0899 0.5916 70 0.000065 0.00006 0.0330 0.3624
80 0.0012 0.1556 80 0.0 0.0 0.00098 0.0253
90 0.0 0.0193 90 0.00004 0.0008
100 0.0 100 0.0 0.0

LEACH, SEP, and HCR. This has two contradictory impacts on the Table 5
Average remaining energy over protocol rounds for WSNs#5 (with a maximum of
overall performance of the protocols manifested by the tradeoff 3911 rounds).
between the dissipated energy of the individual nodes and the
%Rounds LEACH SEP HCR EAERP
dissipated energy of the whole network. While EAERP, with its
fitness function, attempts to find a better collection of clustered 10 37.3592 37.3593 37.8130 38.5059
routes that minimizes the overall energy dissipated by the network 20 19.7019 19.7172 20.6554 22.0881
30 5.4618 3.5861 7.1496 9.0430
to send, receive, and aggregate packets, a number of individual 40 2.4482 0.1060 2.9045 3.4443
CHs may maintain heavy loads from their cluster members before 50 0.4871 0.00031 1.1915 1.4371
forwarding the final aggregated packets to the BS. Over rounds and 60 0.000469 0.0 0.2447 0.6230
as these CHs have to send the aggregated packets to a distant BS, 70 0.0 0.0192 0.1545
80 0.000439 0.0251
their individual energies will be expended earlier than in the other
90 0.0 0.0033
protocols, but in spaced interval fashion. However, the scenario of 100 0.0
uniform distribution of CHs in LEACH, SEP, or HCR tends to slow
down the death of individual nodes, causing the occurrence of
Table 6
FND to be later than that of EAERP, but when the nodes exhaust Average remaining energy over protocol rounds for WSNs#6 (with a maximum of
all their energies, they most probably exhaust in nearer intervals 4536 rounds).
and rapid fashion. For example, closer examination to the results %Rounds LEACH SEP HCR EAERP
of homogeneous WSNs#4, we observe that EAERP takes about
10 39.5095 39.5182 40.0008 40.7849
407.2 rounds between FND and 40% dead nodes, while LEACH,
20 19.0350 19.0332 20.2502 21.9796
SEP, and HCR take, on an average, 141.9, 151.1, and 328.4 rounds, 30 7.2858 3.6027 8.3916 9.7085
respectively. 40 2.6276 0.3455 3.9426 4.3832
50 0.0387 0.0126 1.2499 1.9448
60 0.002 0.0040 0.1428 0.6675
4.2. Energy consumption and throughput 70 0.0 0.0 0.0213 0.1664
80 0.0067 0.0428
Again, more quantitative results can be extracted for evaluating 90 0.00008 0.0191
the performance of the protocols. Tables 16 present the average 100 0.0 0.0
remaining energy in the networks while rounds of the protocols
proceed for the WSNs with center-located and corner-located other hand, HCR has additional parameters that indirectly handle
BS, respectively. In these tables, the * marker indicates the case the total network dissipated energy, while LEACH and SEP concern,
where the death of the whole networks is encountered before in their main objectives, with distributing the role of CHs among all
approaching the required number of rounds for the corresponding the sensor nodes according to probabilistic models that guarantee
protocol. the election of each node as CH every epoch/sub-epoch.
The results indicate that the most energy-saving protocol is Moreover, the second group of results (Figs. 1419) presents
EAERP, which performs better than all the other protocols. This the protocols throughput as measured by the total number of
additional utilization of the energy introduced into the system aggregated packets received at BS from the CHs until a specified
provided by EAERP, as compared with LEACH, SEP, and HCR can percentage of the total network energy is dissipated. From these
be returned back to the fact that EAERP has, in its fitness function results, one can observe that EAERP significantly outperforms
(EAERP ), a direct manipulation of the total dissipated energy. On the LEACH, SEP, and HCR. The results say that EAERP achieves better
202 E.A. Khalil, B.A. Attea / Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 1 (2011) 195203
Fig. 14. Throughput against dissipated energy for WSNs#1.
Fig. 15. Throughput against dissipated energy for WSNs#2.
Fig. 16. Throughput against dissipated energy for WSNs#3.
throughput while maintaining better energy consumption. This
can also be traced back to the positive impact of the fitness function
(EAERP ). As EAERP keeps the sensor nodes alive for a longer number
of rounds than in the other protocols, it can transmit more amounts
of the aggregated packets to the BS.
4.3. Computational time
When using Intel Core i5 CPU 2.27 GHz, EA-based protocols
take additional time (albeit small) to run each round. This result
comes naturally because these protocols handle more than one
solution (as the case in LEACH and SEP) in each round. For 20
different individuals to be evolved in 20 generations, an EA-based
protocol needs to process 400 alternative solutions at each round.
To run each round, the average time needed for either LEACH or
SEP ranges from about 0.03 to 0.13 s, whereas HCR takes 0.152 s
Fig. 17. Throughput against dissipated energy for WSNs#4.
Fig. 18. Throughput against dissipated energy for WSNs#5.
Fig. 19. Throughput against dissipated energy for WSNs#6.
for a network containing 10100 nodes. However, EAERP takes
0.091.8 s to run each round for a network containing 10100
nodes.
5. Conclusion
The formation of dynamic cluster-based routing in WSN has
turned out to be an NP-hard problem, making it highly unlikely
to develop a polynomial-time algorithm to compute an optimal
clustered route. This paper has presented a new evolutionary-
based dynamic cluster formation in WSN. The proposed EAERP
with the formulation of the fitness function (EAERP ), when
compared with other protocols (LEACH, SEP, and HCR), has been
proven to be a meaningful way in deriving clustered routes with
better tradeoff between network stability and network lifetime,
while guaranteeing a well-distributed energy consumption.
 E.A. Khalil, B.A. Attea / Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 1 (2011) 195203
Future research work needs to focus on exploring more
complex routing models. For example, instead of using a single-
hop routing method that is used in the proposed EAERP, it
would be more efficient to formulate the problem as a multihop
routing among the clusters for routing the data to the base
station. Furthermore, additional heuristics may be studied and
applied in the construction of the objective function and/or other
EA components to provide more network stability or longevity
periods.
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