Parallel LEACH Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Hierarchical-based protocols are some of the most popular routing schemes used in wireless sensor networks due to their favorable, energy-saving properties. However, when it comes to large-scale wireless sensor network applications, these algorithms suffer from an increase in computational complexity and latency. In this paper, a parallel algorithm for the hierarchical-based protocol has been designed based on the Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) algorithm in order to improve the routing efficiency of wireless sensor networks. This algorithm was implemented in parallel using the C programming language and mpich2, an implementation of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) specification. The routing algorithm was evaluated for largescale sensor networks on both a shared memory supercomputer and two Linux Beowulf clusters. The results show that the parallel implementation of the hierarchicalbased protocol improves the overall performance of the routing computations, while still maintaining high energy efficiency levels compared to previous hierarchical-based methods.