Coverage and connectivity preserving routing in wireless sensor networks: A new approach

These days wireless sensor networks handle a widespread range of monitoring tasks using their sensing and vision capabilities. These tasks may consist of very complex functions and large calculations. In order to make network alive for a long duration, these sensors have to take decision in judicious and efficient manner. The increased lifetime results into increased connectivity. Also, the intellectual use of energy resources provides the nodes better connectivity to the base station. The different clustering protocols such as Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) are used in order to gain energy efficiency. The LEACH uses probability as the key attribute to elect the new cluster head. In this paper, a new approach based on the frequency of a node selected as cluster head for the selection of new cluster head is proposed which is also more efficient than the former one. The proposed approach for cluster head selection results in increased lifetime and thus, in increased connectivity. Simulation results show that in terms of different parameters like number of live nodes, dead nodes and residual energy our proposed strategy outperforms existing conventional sensor network protocols.