Minimal Induced Traffic for Cluster Formation in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Quantitative Analysis

Clustering approach is one of the most used routing methodologies for wireless sensor network. However, most of the clustering practices make use of greedy cluster head formation process, wherein each node broadcasts its interest in becoming cluster head which is both energy and network intensive. In this paper we present a mechanism for efficient clustering formation, wherein an optimal number of nodes are identified which can take part in clustering formation process. The gains achieved are both energy efficiency and reduced network traffic. In a uniformly placed sensor nodes network, our algorithm comes up with an energy efficient clustering scheme by reducing the number of nodes which take part in clustering process. We have made use of network density as a parameter for creating cluster in the network. A numerical analysis is presented for varying network topologies and simulations are conducted to verify that with increased area coverage, the number of edge nodes become increasingly large, thus contributing to energy gain and less network traffic size.