IEEE Ninth International Conference on Computer and Information Technology
Track-Sector Clustering for Energy Efficient Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks
Navin Gautam*, Won-Il Lee**, and Jae-Young Pyun***
Department of Information and Communication Engineering
Chosun University
Gwangju, Korea
e-mail: navin@stmail.chosun.ac.kr*, tastanos@gmail.com**, jypyun@chosun.ac.kr***
Abstract— Energy conservation is one of the most discussed
issues in wireless sensor network (WSN) application and
protocol designs. Conventional routing protocols such as
LEACH, PEGASIS, and concentric clustering scheme (CCS)
try to minimize energy consumption, but the consumed energy
is still high because of redundant data transmission and
various distances between head nodes and base station (BS). In
this paper, we propose a new routing protocol, track-sector
clustering (TSC) over WSN. In the proposed TSC scheme, we
divide the network into concentric circular tracks and
triangular sectors. This division of tracks and sectors helps to
reduce the energy consumption by minimizing redundant data
transmission and providing shortest distance between head
nodes and the BS. For the formation of tracks and sectors in
the network, the proposed TSC requires additional
computations. However, all the computations for the formation
of tracks and sectors are carried out in the BS just at the
beginning of the network setup. Therefore, we can achieve the
goal of energy efficiency without additional energy
consumption of the distributed nodes after network setup
process in our proposed TSC protocol. Our simulation results
showed that the proposed TSC scheme is about 9 times, 2.5
times, and 2.3 times efficient in conserving energy as compared
to LEACH, PEGASIS, and CCS respectively.
Keywords- cluster; head node; track; sector
I. INTRODUCTION
WSN has wide range of applications such as environment
monitoring, health care, battle field surveillance, habitat
monitoring, and etc. The sensor nodes are constrained with
resources such as battery power, memory, bandwidth, and
computational capabilities. Energy conservation is one of the
most discussed issues in WSN application and protocol
development [1-9].
Routing protocols highly affect the performance of WSN.
Therefore, the routing protocols should be developed
effectively for balancing the energy load and prolonging the
network lifetime. Many routing protocols have been
proposed in order to achieve the energy efficiency in WSN.
On the basis of network structure, routing protocols in WSN
have been divided into flat, hierarchical, and location-based
routings [8]. Specifically, hierarchical routing protocols have
significant savings in total energy consumption of the WSN.
In hierarchical routing protocols, clusters are created and a
***Corresponding author
978-0-7695-3836-5/09 $26.00 © 2009 IEEE 116
DOI 10.1109/CIT.2009.130
head node (we use the term head node to denote the CH-
node in LEACH and LEACH-C and leader node in
PEGASIS) is assigned to each cluster. These head nodes
have responsibilities of collecting and aggregating the data
from their respective clusters and transmitting the aggregated
data to the BS. The aggregation of data at head nodes greatly
reduces the energy consumption in the network by
minimizing the total data messages to be transmitted to the
BS. Also, the head nodes act as local sinks for the data, so
that the data are transmitted relatively over a short distance.
Popular routing protocols based on clustering schemes,
such as low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH),
energy LEACH, multi-hop LEACH, LEACH-C, power
efficient gathering in sensor information system (PEGASIS),
and concentric clustering scheme (CCS) proposed in [1-5]
are effective in conserving energy. However, these
conventional routing protocols have energy consumption
loopholes due to redundant data transmission and unequal
depletion of energy in head nodes.
We propose track sector clustering (TSC) scheme to
globally remove the redundant data transmission and
distribute the energy depletion in the network uniformly by
minimizing the distance between the head nodes and the BS.
Also, the proposed TSC contributes to the conservation of
energy by reducing the number of data messages aggregation
at the head node.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: section II
and III deal with conventional routing protocols and
motivation behind the TSC scheme. Section IV, V, and VI
present the proposed TSC scheme, mathematical analysis of
energy consumption for conventional routing protocols and
TSC scheme, and performance evaluation respectively.
Finally, section VII presents the conclusion.
II. CONVENTIONAL ROUTING PROTOCOLS
LEACH proposed in [1] is the first clustering protocol in
WSN. LEACH is a self organizing adaptive clustering
protocol that uses randomization to distribute energy load
evenly among the sensors in the network. In LEACH, the
nodes organize themselves into local clusters, with one node
selected as the head node. The topology of LEACH is shown
in Fig. 1. LEACH uses randomized rotation method for
selection of head node in order to distribute energy
consumption uniformly in the network.
In PEGASIS, the nodes in the network form a
transmission chain such that the data are received from and

Figure 1. Data gathering at head nodes in LEACH protocol.
Figure 2. Data gathering at head node in PEGASIS protocol.
transmitted to the nearest one-hop neighbor. One node in the
chain is selected as head node, and the other nodes take turn
to become the head node in each round. Each node receives
data from its one neighbor, fuses it with its own data, and
transmits the fused data to its one-hop neighbor on the chain.
This process is repeated until the head node gets data from
all the nodes. The head node is selected with the node
number obtained by calculating i mod N, where N represents
the number of nodes and i represents the current round
number [4]. Fig. 2 shows the basic topology of PEGASIS
protocol. PEGASIS achieves energy conservation in two
ways: First, the number of data messages received by the
head node is at most two, which is quite less as compared to
that in LEACH. Second, the distance over which the data are
transmitted to one-hop neighbor is much less as compared to
transmitting to a head node in LEACH [4]. Although,
PEGASIS conserves energy by reducing the number of data
messages gathering at head node, there are still some
loopholes for energy consumption [5].
To reduce the energy consumption loopholes in
PEGASIS, a protocol called CCS has been proposed in [5].
Fig. 3 shows the basic topology of CCS scheme. In this
scheme, the network is divided into concentric circular tracks
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and each circular track represents a cluster. Each circular
track is assigned with a level, the track nearest to the BS is
assigned level-1 and the level number increases as it moves
further from the BS (we use the term track to represent
concentric circles in [5]). Chains are constructed within the
track as in PEGASIS. One of the nodes in the chain is
selected as the head node. A head node in level L is selected
with node number obtained by calculating i mod ML, where
ML represents the number of nodes that have the same level
in i round. All the non-head nodes receive from one-hop
neighbor and fuse with their own data, and then transmit to
one-hop neighbors in the chain. Therefore, the head node
receives at most two data messages. The head node then
transmits the data to the head node in the lower level track
[5]. In this scheme, the distance over which the data have to
be transmitted to the BS from the head node is reduced. This
reduction in transmission distance saves a considerable
amount of energy. Also, as the network is divided into a
number of concentric clusters, the reverse flow of data from
BS is reduced. Because of these reasons, a considerable
amount of energy is conserved during data transmission.
However, there are loopholes for energy consumption such
as variable distance transmission and redundant data
transmission over the network.
III. MOTIVATION FOR OUR TSC SCHEME
The conventional routing protocols focus mainly on
cluster formation so as to obtain uniform consumption of
energy in the clusters. However, these protocols do not
consider the transmission distance between the head nodes
and the BS, position of the BS, and the possible redundant
data transmission due to reverse flow of data from BS. CCS
proposes to form clusters in concentric circles in order to
remove the redundant data transmission seen in PEGASIS
protocol and to minimize the number of data messages
gathering at the head node as seen in LEACH. However, the
chains formed in the clusters are long over the concentric
circles. Therefore, the redundancy still remains, as data have
to flow around the BS over a long circular chain before
reaching to the BS. Also, the distance between the head
nodes and the distance between the head node in lowest level
track and the BS could still be larger in the case of large and
non-uniform network. This could consume more energy in
the network.
We are motivated with the shortcomings present in the
conventional routing protocols, such as large number of data
messages gathering at head nodes, large distance of head
nodes from the BS, reverse flow of data from the BS, and
formation of bottleneck at the head nodes. Thus we propose
a new routing protocol called TSC scheme for energy
efficient routing in WSN. The proposed scheme not only
reduces the redundant data transmission by breaking the
large circular chain into smaller clusters, but also reduces the
energy consumption caused by large distance between head
node and the BS, in the case of uniform as well as non-
uniform network.
 Figure 3. Data gathering at head nodes in CCS protocol.
IV. PROPOSED TSC SCHEME
The proposed TSC scheme is basically a hierarchical
clustering scheme with one head node selected in each
cluster. As shown in Fig. 4, the proposed TSC scheme uses
tracks and sectors to form clusters. Therefore, a cluster is an
area under curved strip formed by the intersection of a
circular track and a triangular sector. The formation of
clusters using tracks and sectors reduces redundant data
transmission in the network by breaking the long chain in the
track into smaller chains. Also, it reduces the total distance
for transmission of data from the nodes to their respective
head nodes and then finally to the BS. In addition, the
number of data messages gathered in the head node in TSC
is still not greater than the number of data messages that are
gathered in CCS.
The proposed TSC protocol operation can be divided in
four phases: track setup, sector setup and head node
selection, chain construction, and data transmission.
A. Phase I: Track Setup
The BS sets the concentric circular tracks with itself as
geometric center of the concentric circular tracks. The nodes
are assigned their respective tracks by using the signal
strength and the position information of each node. The track
nearest to the BS is leveled as level-1 and the level goes on
increasing for the tracks far from the BS, i.e., the tracks with
higher level are further away from the BS. The number of
tracks to be formed is determined initially as in [5]. The
number of tracks depends upon parameters such as
distribution density of the network, the number of sensor
nodes, and the location of the BS. The track setup remains
unchanged throughout the network lifetime. The basic
topology of TSC is depicted in Fig. 4.
B. Phase II: Sector Setup and Head Node Selection
In this phase, sectors are constructed over the network.
The BS selects Ns number of head nodes, which is equal to
the number of sectors, in each track. At first, a head node is
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Figure 4. Data gathering at head nodes in proposed TSC protocol.
selected at random in level-1 track. Then, with the position
information of the selected head node, the BS calculates the
transmission slope of the selected head node with respect to
the BS. We assume that the location information is possibly
determined by using GPS devices attached to the nodes as in
LEACH-C [2]. Finally, a node that has transmission slope
similar to the transmission slope of the head node at level-1
track is selected in each of the higher level tracks. This
selection of head nodes with similar values of slopes ensures
that all the first head nodes in different tracks lie in the same
sector. Finally, other head nodes in each track are selected at
a distance given by
θ = 360 / (2 × Ns), Ns = number of sectors
(1)
dh = 2r sin(kθ ) k = 1, 2,3,..., Ns / 2
r = dist. of first leader node from BS.
Equation (1) can be explained with Fig. 5. If we apply
trigonometric method to calculate the side of triangle in Fig.
5, half of the distance between the two head nodes is given
by r sin( kθ ) . Therefore, the distance dh is given
by 2r sin(kθ ) , where k = 1 for the nodes in adjacent
sectors. Therefore, (1) ensures the selection of head nodes in
different sectors of the same track.
The number of sectors is also determined initially in BS.
The number of sectors depends upon various factors such as
distribution density of the network, number of nodes,
distance among the nodes, and the transmission delay.
However, we select the number of sectors in such a way that
the angle projected at the BS by each sector is 60°, as shown
in Fig. 5. The selection of a sector with projection angle of
60° constructs sector in an equilateral triangle. Thus, the
distance between any two nodes in the sector is limited
within the length equal to the radius of the highest level
track. The sector setup remains unchanged throughout the
network lifetime.

θ
Figure 5. Calculation of distance between head nodes in the same
track.
C. Phase III: Chain Construction
In this phase, chains are constructed within each cluster
area formed by the intersection of tracks and sectors. For the
construction of the chain, we employ greedy algorithm as in
PEGASIS [4]. In the first round, the head nodes are selected
as described in sector setup and head node selection phase.
In the following rounds, the head nodes in the chain are
selected with the node number obtained by calculating i mod
ML, where ML represents the number of nodes that have the
same level in i round. In case, if any node in the chain dies,
the chain is reconstructed to bypass the dead node.
D. Phase IV: Data Transmission
In this phase, all the non-head nodes receive from and
transmit to a one-hop neighbor in their respective clusters.
The head node in each cluster aggregates the data and
transmits to the head node of another cluster in lower level
track. Thus, the data are gathered in multi-hop fashion and
finally transmitted to the BS. For example, as shown in Fig.
4, the head nodes in level-3 transmit the data to the head
nodes near to them in level-2 and then to level-1 and finally
to the BS.
V. ENERGY ANALYSIS OF PEGASIS, CCS, AND PROPOSED
TSC SCHEME
A. Energy Relations for PEGASIS, CCS, and Proposed
TSC Scheme
The total energy for a transmitter to send a k-bit message
over a distance d is given by
ETotal ( k , d ) = Eeleck + ε amp kd 2 ,
where ε amp is the energy constant for the radio transmission
and Eelec is the energy per bit [6].
The first term Eeleck in (2) is the total energy used to run
the circuitry to handle k-bit message. Therefore, the value of
first term remains constant for a network. The second term
ε amp kd 2 is the energy for transmitter to send k-bits over
distance d. This second term is the reason for variable energy
consumption in a network setup, as d is variable. We denote
this second term by the expression ETx(k, d).
For PEGASIS, let the distance between the head node
and the BS is r1, as shown in the Fig. 2. Therefore, for a
network with n nodes, the radio transmission energy
consumed to transmit from both ends to the head node over
distance d and then to the BS over distance r1 is calculated
by changing the second term in (2) as
ETx ( k , d ) = ε amp k (n − 1)d 2 + r12 . (3)
For CCS, let the number of concentric circles or tracks be
NT as shown in Fig. 3. Then the radio transmission energy
consumed to transmit k-bit message over distance d1, from
head node to the head node in lower level track and finally to
the BS over distance r2 is calculated as
NT −1
ETx (k , d ) = ε ampk NT (n'-1)d 2 + d12 + r2 2 , (4)
i =1
where n' is the average number of nodes in the track and d1 is
the distance between the head nodes in two neighboring
tracks.
For proposed TSC scheme, let the distance between the
head node and the BS is r2 as shown in the Fig. 4.
Therefore, the radio transmission energy consumed to
transmit the k-bit data from the source node to the BS is
given by
NS −1
ETx (k , d ) = ε ampk NS (n''-1)d 2 + d 2 2 + r2 2 , (5)
i =1
where Ns is the number of sectors, n'' is the average number
of nodes in a sector, and d2 is the distance between head
nodes in two neighboring clusters in the same sector.
For our mathematical analysis we assumed for simplicity
that the network is uniform.
B. Analysis of Energy Relations for PEGASIS, CCS, and
Proposed TSC Scheme
In the case of PEGASIS, the value of r1 ranges from the
distance of node nearest from BS to the distance of the node
furthest from the BS. But in CCS and proposed TSC scheme,
the distance r2 is always near to the BS and it never exceeds
the radius of the lowest level track, as shown in Fig. 2 and 4.
(2) That is, it is certain that r1 >> r2. Therefore, we can conclude
that less energy is consumed in CCS and proposed TSC
scheme as compared to PEGASIS.
Now, we compare the CCS with the proposed TSC
scheme. We can conclude that d1 >> d2, as shown in Fig. 3
and 4. This is because the distance between head nodes
might not be uniform in long chains in the neighboring
tracks in the case of CCS. Therefore, proposed TSC scheme
consumes less energy than the CCS.
Also, there is redundant data transmission in case of
PEGASIS, as the nodes near to the BS might have to
transmit the data to the head node, which might be far away
from BS. This is known as reverse flow of data from BS [5].
Similarly, redundancy is not removed completely in CCS,
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because the data might have to travel from the end of the
chain through a large distance around the BS in circle, before
reaching to the head node of the chain. The redundancy of
such type could be removed if the data could travel through a
short chain before reaching the head node. In the proposed
TSC scheme, all the nodes including the head node within a
cluster are more or less at equal distance from the BS.
Therefore, the redundant data transmission caused by reverse
flow of data from BS is reduced, and energy is much saved.
Similarly, the long chain seen in CCS is divided into small
chains by the use of sectors. This division of long chain into
smaller chains reduces the redundancy problem that can be
seen in CCS. Therefore, the proposed TSC scheme is more
energy efficient as compared to PEGASIS and CCS.
C. Numerical Analysis of Energy Relations for PEGASIS,
CCS, and Proposed TSC Scheme
We use the formal radio model as in [1][9] to compare
the performance of the proposed TSC protocol with
PEGASIS and CCS protocols. The variables used for
numerical analysis are summarized in the Table I. For our
calculation, we assume that the area of network is 100m ×
100m and the BS is located at center (50, 50). With the
values in Table I and (4), the energy consumed for data
transmission in CCS is then given by
ETX (k , d ) = 2 ×10 −7
× ( d12 + r2 2 ) + 7.6 ×10 −5.
The value of d1 in (6) ranges from 0 to 90 m. Similarly,
the value of r2 ranges from 0 to 20 m.
Similarly, by using values in Table I and (5), the energy
consumed for data transmission in proposed TSC is given by
ETX (k , d ) = 2 ×10 −7
× ( d 2 2 + r2 2 ) + 7.6 ×10 −5. (7)
The value of r2 in (7) ranges from 0 to 20 m. The range of
values for r2 is same for (6) and (7). Therefore, the energy
consumption depends solely upon the values of d1 and d2.
But we know that d1 >> d2. Therefore, the energy
consumption for CCS is greater than the energy consumption
for the proposed TSC scheme.
VI. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
A. Simulation Environment
We used Ns-2.27 for performance evaluation of the
proposed TSC scheme [10][11]. For our simulation we used
a network of 100 nodes deployed in an area of 100 m × 100
m with BS at center (50, 50). We set the initial energy of
each node to 24 J. The number of tracks was set to 5.
Because the BS was located in the center, we set the number
of sectors to 6, so that each sector projected an angle of 60°
at the BS. Each sector had variable number of nodes. The
channel bandwidth was set to 1 Mbps. The packet header
size was set to 25 bytes and size of each data was set to 500
bytes. We assumed that no energy was consumed when the
node stayed idle or went to sleep and the energy was spent
only during data transmission and reception. The simulation
time was set to 1500 seconds. The other parameters for the
TABLE I. VARIABLES USED FOR NUMERICAL ANALYSIS AND
NETWORK SIMULATION
Type Parameter Value
Transmitter amplifier ε amp 10-12J
Data bit k 2000
Distance between nodes d 2m
Number of nodes n 100
Number of tracks NT 5
Number of sectors NS 6
Avg. no. of nodes in track n' 20
Avg. no. of nodes in sector n'' 100/6
simulation such as transmitter amplifier and data bit are
expressed in Table I.
B. Simulation Results
We used two performance metrics for the performance
evaluation of the proposed TSC scheme: energy
consumption over simulation time and number of nodes alive
over simulation time. The first performance metrics, energy
consumption over simulation time, gives an idea of the rate
of consumption of energy in the network and the second
(6) metrics, number of nodes alive over simulation time gives an
idea of the time over which the network can send the data
before all the nodes in the network die. We compared the
proposed TSC scheme with popular routing protocols such
as LEACH, PEGASIS, and CCS. We chose these above
mentioned protocols for our analysis because the proposed
TSC scheme is also a hierarchical clustering scheme as these
protocols. Fig. 6 shows the simulation results for energy
consumption over simulation time. Our simulation results
showed that the proposed TSC scheme is about 9 times, 2.5
times, and 2.3 times efficient in conserving the energy as
compared to LEACH, PEGASIS, and CCS respectively. As
seen in Fig. 6, in the beginning, the energy consumption in
the proposed TSC scheme is more or less similar to the
energy consumption in LEACH, PEGASIS, and CCS.
However, as the simulation time increases, TSC performs
better in terms of energy conservation as compared to the
conventional routing protocols. Similarly, Fig. 7 shows that
our TSC scheme performs well in terms of number of nodes
alive over simulation time. Our proposed TSC scheme has
50 alive nodes, whereas LEACH, PEGASIS, and CCS have
5, 17, and 20 alive nodes, respectively, at the simulation time
of 1500 seconds. The number of alive nodes after the
completion of simulation determines the life of the network.
More the number of alive nodes after simulation time, longer
will be the life of the network. Also, Fig. 7 shows that the
time for the death of the first node is more in case of TSC
than the time for the death of the first node in LEACH,
PEGASIS, and CCS. Therefore, from the simulation results
shown in Fig. 7, we can conclude that the network lifetime
for proposed TSC scheme is also greater as compared to the
network lifetime of LEACH, PEGASIS, and CCS.
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 2400 conventional routing protocols. This considerable amount of
2200 energy conservation is obtained at the cost of increasing
2000
computational complexities only at the beginning of network
setup. Because, almost all the computations are done in the
1800
BS, the additional computations at the beginning of the
1600 network setup do not increase the energy consumption in the
LEACH
1400 network. Therefore, the proposed TSC scheme for WSN
Energy[J]

PEGASIS
1200 CCS routing can be adapted in the applications where energy
1000 TSC conservation is of prime importance. Unlike in PEGASIS
800
and CCS, there is no or very less redundant data transmission
caused by reverse flow of data from the BS in the proposed
600
TSC scheme. Therefore, the proposed TSC scheme may also
400 be adapted in applications, where redundant data
200 transmission has to be minimized and where end-to-end
0 delay is also a major factor.
200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
Time[s]
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