Energy-efficient clustering for ad-hoc transmission in wireless sensor networks

Clustering in wireless sensor networks is a widely acclaimed and proven energy-saving scheme. By letting each sensor to communicate with its cluster-head (CH), which in turn aggregates the collected information and communicates to the base station (BS), energy consumptions can be lowered. In this paper, we propose a set of simple yet effective algorithms for minimizing the overall energy consumptions in clustered wireless sensor networks where each CH can either communicate directly to BS or ad-hoc through other CHs. Simulation results show that, by allowing ad-hoc transmissions between CHs, an impressive energy saving can be achieved. Moreover, under such case the networks also tend to have more balanced energy consumptions by different clusters, which is highly favorable in some applications.