Improvement on LEACH Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Since sensor networks have limited and nonrechargeable energy resources, it has been a research focus on reducing node energy consumption and prolonging the network lifetime in wireless sensor network (WSN) routing protocols. A novel routing algorithm based on Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) routing protocol is proposed in this paper. In order to improve the random probability of cluster head (CH) election, the factors of residual energy and the frequency of becoming CHs are introduced. Hence, with the increasing number of running time, the nodes with more residual energy and fewer times of becoming CHs are more likely to be chosen as CHs, so that the energy consumption could be balanced. Finally, the simulation results prove that the improved algorithm obviously outperforms LEACH in network lifetime.