Ant Colony Clustering Routing Protocol for Optimization of Large Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have broad application prospects in many fields, which include diverse uses such as farming and industrial. The major motivation to improve the routing performance of WSNs is due to the restriction of energy supply, especially for large scale WSNs. In this paper, an ant colony clustering routing protocol (ACCR) is presented. In the clustering phase, we estimate the theoretical energy dissipation as standard energy which results in the energy consumption to fluctuate around the standard energy. In the data transmission phase, we implement a proactive algorithm based on ant colony optimization. The algorithm establishes multiple optimal paths in terms of energy level and link length from cluster head to base station. The simulation results that ACCR is well suited for large-scale network application, achieves better load balancing and lower energy consumption, higher energy efficiency, and then maximize the network lifetime.