(IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 183

Vol. 2, No. 5, May 2010

Energy-efficient Algorithm for a novel clustering

approach in w/s networks
S. Sarah 1, P. Kumaran2 and Dr. A. Arul Lawrence Selvakumar 3

1
M. E Final Year, Dr. Paul’s Engineering College, Pondicherry,
Anna University, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India
sarahnixon@rediffmail.com
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Dr. Paul’s Engineering College, Pondicherry,
Anna University, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India
kumaran.periyasamy@yahoo.co.in
3
Professor & Head, Department of Computer Science and Information Technology,
Kuppam Engineering College, Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh, India
aarul72@hotmail.com

Abstract: Energy efficiency operations are essential in
extending Wireless Sensor Networks lifetime. Among the energy
saving- based solutions, clustering sensor nodes is an interesting
technique for achieving these goals. . In this work, we propose a
new energy-efficient approach for clustering nodes in adhoc
sensor networks. The main challenge in wireless sensor network
deployment pertains to optimizing energy consumption when
collecting data from sensor nodes. Compared to other methods
(CPLEX-based method, distributed method, simulated
annealing-based method), the results show that our approach
returns high-quality solutions in terms of cluster cost and
execution time. As a result, this approach is suitable for
handling network extensibility in a satisfactory manner
Keywords: wireless sensor networks, clustering, energy-
efficient, distributed.
1. Introduction
Sensor networks have recently emerged as an important
computing platform. Sensor nodes are typically less mobile
and more densely deployed than mobile ad-hoc networks
(MANETs). Sensor nodes must be left unattended e.g., in
hostile environments, which makes it difficult or impossible
to re-charge or replace their batteries (solar energy is not
always an option). This necessitates devising novel energy-
efficient solutions to some of the conventional wireless
networking problems, such as medium access control,
routing, self-organization, bandwidth sharing, and security.
Exploiting the tradeoffs among energy, accuracy, and
latency, and using hierarchical (tiered) architectures are
important techniques for prolonging network lifetime
This necessity implies the emergence of new kinds of
networks, which are typically composed of low-capacity
devices. Such devices, called sensors, make it possible to
capture and measure specific elements from the physical
world (e.g., temperature, pressure, humidity). Moreover,
they run on small batteries with low energetic capacities.
Consequently, their power consumption must be optimized
in order to ensure increased lifetime for those devices.
During data collection, two mechanisms are used to
reduce energy consumption: message aggregation and
filtering of redundant data. These mechanisms generally use
clustering methods in order to coordinate aggregation and
filtering.
Hierarchical (clustering) techniques can aid in reducing
useful energy consumption. Clustering is particularly useful
for applications that require scalability to hundreds or
thousands of nodes. Scalability in this context implies the
need for load balancing and efficient resource utilization.
Applications requiring efficient data aggregation (e.g.,
computing the maximum detected radiation around an
object) are natural candidates for clustering. Routing
protocols can also employ clustering. Clustering was
proposed as a useful tool for efficiently pinpointing object
locations.
Clustering can be extremely effective in one-to-
many, many - to- one, one-to-any, or one-to-all (broadcast)
communication. For example, in many-to-one
communication, clustering can support data fusion and
reduce communication interference. The essential operation
in sensor node clustering is to select a set of cluster heads
among the nodes in the network, and cluster the rest of the
nodes with these heads. Cluster heads are responsible for
coordination among the nodes within their clusters (intra-
cluster coordination), and communication with each other
and/or with external observers on behalf of their clusters
(inter-cluster communication).
Energy efficiency operations are essential in
extending Wireless Sensor Networks lifetime. Among the
energy saving- based solutions, clustering sensor nodes is an
interesting alternative that features a reduction in energy
consumption through: (i) aggregating data; (ii) controlling
transmission power levels (iii) balancing load; (iv) putting
redundant sens or nodes to sleep.
184 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 2, No. 5, May 2010

required without burdening them with unnecessary data.

Since sensor nodes carry limited and non-replaceable power
sources, the efficiency of energy use determines the lifetime Centralized clustering is modeled as hyper graph
of the sensors and, consequently, the duration of the sensing partitioning. The novel method proposes the use of a tabu
task and the network lifetime. Here, the network lifetime is search heuristic to solve this problem. The existing
defined as the time elapsed until the first node (or the last centralized clustering methods cannot be used to solve this
node) in the network depletes its energy (dies). Energy issue due to the fact that our approach to model the problem
saving in sensor networks is an open challenging issue, assumes that the numbers of clusters and cluster heads are
where a substantial amount of works has been done. Among unknown before clusters are created, which constitutes
these works, clustering-based approaches are showing the another major original facet of this paper.
most exiting result through their ability to reduce energy
consumption by multiple ways. In fact, hierarchical- 2. Data Collection Mechanism
clustering reduces: (i) the amount of query packets via inter-
Generally, sensor networks contain a large quantity of nodes
cluster query dissemination; (ii) the amount of data packets
that collect measurements before sending them to the
by aggregating collected data. Further, hierarchical-
applications. If all nodes forwarded their measurements, the
clustering needs a minimal number of active nodes to cover
volume of data received by the applications would increase
the target area. This is achieved by putting redundant sensor
exponentially, rendering data processing a tedious task. A
nodes in sleep mode. At this point, hierarchical-clustering is
sensor system should thus contain mechanisms that allow
particularly useful for applications that require scalability to
the applications to express their requirements in terms of the
hundreds or thousands of nodes. However, hierarchical-
required quality of data. Data aggregation and data filtering
clustering scheme deals with some constraints. The most
are two methods that reduce the quantity of data received by
relevant concerns the Cluster-Head (CH) reconfiguration
applications. The aim of those two methods is not only to
process. Actually, to alleviate the large amount of energy
minimize the energy consumption by decreasing the number
consumption required by a CH, frequent reconfigurations of
of messages exchanged in the network but also to provide
clusters are needed.
the applications with the needed data without needlessly
overloading them with exorbitant quantities of messages.
They model this problem as a k-means clustering problem,
which is defined as follows : let P be a set of n data points in
The aggregation data mechanism allows for the gathering
d-dimensional space Rd and an integer k, and the problem
of several measures into one record whose size is less than
consists of determining a set of k points in Rd, called
the extent of the initial records. However, the result
centers, to minimize the mean squared distance from each
semantics must not contradict the initial record semantics.
data point to its nearest center. In centralized proposed
Moreover, it must not lose the meanings of the initial
version of Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy
records. The data filtering mechanism makes it possible to
(LEACH), their data collection protocol, in order to produce
ignore measurements considered redundant or those
better clusters by dispersing cluster head nodes throughout
irrelevant to the application needs. A sensor system provides
the network. In this protocol, each node sends information
the applications with the means to express the criteria used
regarding its current location and energy level to the sink
to determine measurement relevancy, e.g., an application
node, which computes the node’s mean energy level, and
could be concerned with temperatures, which are 1) lower
nodes, whose energy level is inferior to this average, cannot
than a given value and 2) recorded within a delimited zone.
become cluster heads for the current round. Considering the
The sensor system filters the network messages and
remaining nodes as possible cluster heads, the sink node
forwards only those that respect the filter conditions.
finds clusters using the simulated annealing algorithm in
order to find optimal clusters.
Applications that use sensor networks are generally
concerned with the node measurements within a certain
This algorithm attempts to minimize the amount of energy
period of time. Hence, the most important key indicators in
required for non cluster head nodes to transmit their data to
sensor networks are the quality of the measurements and the
the cluster head, by minimizing the sum of squared
network lifetime. An application designed to record the
distances between all non cluster head nodes and the closest
mean temperature in zones where the sensors are deployed
cluster head. The energy map, the component that holds
could be associated with a set of requirements in terms of
information concerning the remaining energy available in
measured frequencies (e.g., the sensor system must record a
all network areas, can be used to prolong the network’s
measurement every 15 minutes), in terms of a measurement
lifetime.
discrepancy thresholds (e.g., the sensor system must ignore
data whose result is less than 10 percent of the previous
This paper proposes a new centralized clustering
mechanism equipped with energy maps and constrained by value), and in terms of the sensor lifetime (e.g.,
Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements. Such a clustering measurements must be provided for one year).
mechanism is used to collect data in sensor networks. The
first original aspect of this investigation consists of adding In [3], we propose a novel data collection approach for
these constraints to the clustering mechanism that helps the sensor networks that use energy maps and QoS requirements
data collection algorithm in order to reduce energy to reduce power consumption while increasing network
consumption and provide applications with the information coverage. The mechanism comprises two phases: during the
 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 185
first phase, the applications specify their QoS requirements
regarding the data required by the applications. They send
their requests to a particular node S, called the collector
node, which receives the application query and obtains
results from other nodes before returning them to the
applications. The collector node builds the clusters,
optimally using the QoS requirements and the energy map
information. During the second phase, the cluster heads
must provide the collector node with combined
measurements for each period. The cluster head is in charge
of various activities: coordinating the data collection within
its cluster, filtering redundant measurements, computing
aggregate functions, and sending results to a node collector.
3. Problem Formulation
The considered network contains a set V of m
stationary
nodes whose localizations are known. The communication
model can be described as multihop, which means that
certain nodes cannot send measurements directly to the
collector node: they must rely on their neighbors’ service.
An application can specify the following QoS requirements:
1. Data collection frequency, fq. The network provides
results to the application every time the duration fq
expires.
2. A measurement uncertainty threshold, mut. If the
difference between two simultaneous measurements
from two different nodes in the same zone (fourth
requirement) is inferior to mut, then one of them is
considered redundant.
3. A query duration, T . The network required for the
query run a total time whose value is equal to T .
4. A zone size step. The step value determines the zone
length. Within a single zone, measurements are
considered redundant. If an application requires
more precision, it could decrease the step value or
even ignore the transfer of such value.
The goal of the clustering algorithm is to
1) Split the network nodes into a set of clusters.
2) application requirements,
3) reduce energy consumption, and
4) Prolong the network lifetime.
Clusters are built according to the following criteria:
. Maximize network coverage using the energy map;
. Gather nodes likely to hold redundant
measurements;
. Gather nodes located within the same zone delimited
by the application.
4. A Tabu Search Approach
In order to facilitate the usage of tabu search for CBP, a new
graph called Grow is defined. It is capable of determining
feasible clusters. A feasible cluster consists of a set of nodes
Vol. 2, No. 5, May 2010
that fulfill the cluster building constraints. Nodes that
satisfy Constraint, i.e., ensure zone cover-age, are called
active nodes. The vertices of Gr represent the network
nodes. An edge is defined in graph Gr between nodes i and j
if they satisfy Constraints. Consequently, it is clear that a
clique in Gr embodies a feasible cluster. A clique consists of
a set of nodes that are adjacent to one another.
Five steps should be conducted in order to adapt tabu
search heuristics to solve a particular problem:
1. design an algorithm that returns an initial solution,
2. define moves that determine the neighbourhood N
of a solution s,
3. determine the content and size of tabu lists,
4. define the aspiration criteria,
5. design intensification and diversification
mechanisms.
The algorithm ends when one of the following three
conditions occurs:
1. All possible moves are prohibited by the tabu lists;
2. The maximal number of iterations allowed has been
reached;
3. The maximal number of iterations, where the best
solution is not enhanced successively, has been
reached.
Analysis of the Impact of Tabu Search Parameters
The size of the tabu list has a direct impact on the
quality of the solution. Hence, it is important to analyze its
impact, in order to adjust its value accordingly. Results
reported in [5] show that determining the tabu list size
dynamically is more efficient than fixing its value during
the iterations. This experiment involves a sensor network
composed of 100 nodes. A square topology is used, i.e.,
nodes arise on the summits of squares that cover the entire
network area. To facilitate the analysis, it is assumed that all
nodes are active.
Figure 1. Impact of max no of iterations on the solution
cost.
An experiment was conducted in order to quantify the
impact of the parameter “maximum number of allowed
186 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 2, No. 5, May 2010

iterations” on the quality of the solution found and References

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not enhanced” parameter, which takes a value that allows
the algorithm to reach the maximum number of iterations.
Fig. 1 shows the impact of this parameter on the percentage
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iterations, the solution costs is enhanced; hence, higher
quality solutions are obtained. This occurs until this
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identical cost in spite of the increasing number of iterations.
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communicating the network node information and the time
required to solve an optimization problem.
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5. Conclusions

This paper has presented a heuristic approach based on a

energy efficient search to solve clustering problems where
the numbers of clusters and cluster heads are unknown
beforehand. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the
clustering problem is modeled and resolved with these
constraints. The tabu search adaptation consists of defining
three types of moves that allow reassigning nodes to
clusters, selecting cluster heads, and removing existing
clusters. Such moves use the largest size clique in a
feasibility cluster graph, which facilitates the analysis of
several solutions and makes it possible to compare them
using a gain function.
Performance of our central approach with those of a
distributed approach and we conclude that the central
approach is less efficient than the distributed approach in
the cluster building phase. Nevertheless, the central
approach is more efficient in the data collection phase.
Consequently, the central approach is more efficient in a
case where the data collection phase is long. Otherwise, the
distributed approach should be used to run the queries with
a short execution time.