Comprehensive Study of Node Clustering in Wireless Sensor Networks for Environment Monitoring
Dawei Xia and Natalija Vlajic
In this paper, a summary of our work on energy-conservation properties of node clustering in WSNs is provided. The main contributions of this work include: 1) It is proven that only clustering schemes which position their resultant clusters within the isoclusteri of the monitored phenomenon are guaranteed to reduce the nodes’ energy consumption and extend the network lifetime. 2) Anovel WSN clustering algorithm – Local Negotiated Clustering Algorithm (LNCA) is proposed. To our knowledge, LNCAis the first clustering algorithm that employs the similarity of nodes’ readings as the main criterion in cluster formation. As such, LNCAis highly effective in minimizing in-network data-reporting traffic and, accordingly, in reducing the energy usage of individual sensor nodes. 3) The key features of our Qualnet-based [1] simulation framework for the performance analysis of clustered WSNsare outlined, and some selected simulation results obtained with the given framework are presented.