A Hybrid Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks Based on a Two-Level Clustering Hierarchy with Enhanced Energy Efficiency

A two-level hierarchical clustering based hybrid routing protocol (THCHP) for wireless sensor networks is proposed in this paper. The per frame time average energy dissipation performance of THCHP is analytically evaluated. The accuracy of the derived analytical expression is validated via comparisons with simulation results. Furthermore, we compare the performance of THCHP to the previously proposed APTEEN protocol. Our results show that THCHP achieves significant energy savings when compared to APTEEN. In addition, comparisons between the average query response times of THCHP and APTEEN show that the proposed THCHP scheme achieves a much lower query response time and can operate over a broad range of query arrival rates with minimal increases in response time.