Similarity-aware data aggregation using fuzzy c-means approach for wireless sensor networks

For resource-constrained IoT systems, data collection is one of the fundamental operations to reduce the energy dissipation of sensor nodes and improve the network lifetime. However, an anomaly or deviation will exert a great influence on the quality of data collected, especially for a data aggregation scheme. By taking into account data-aware clustering and detection of anomalous events, a similarity-aware data aggregation using a fuzzy c-means approach for wireless sensor networks is proposed. Firstly, by using a fuzzy c-means approach, the clustering process can be performed to organize sensors into clusters based on data similarity. Next, an effective support degree function is defined for further outlier diagnosis. Afterwards, the appropriate weight of valid data can be obtained by taking advantage of the probability distribution characteristics of normal samples within a certain period. Finally, the aggregation result in the cluster can be estimated. Practical database-based simulations have confirmed that the proposed data aggregation method can achieve better performance than traditional methods in terms of data outlier detection accuracy and relative recovery error.