An Energy-efficient Competitive Clustering Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks using Mobile Sink

Wireless sensor networks commonly consist of a large number of tiny sensor nodes that are deployed either inside the target area or very close to it to cooperatively monitor the target area. Energy efficiency and network lifetime are two challenges that most of researchers deal with. In this paper, to improve the performance of sensor networks, we propose an energyefficient competitive clustering algorithm for wireless sensor networks using a controlled mobile sink. Clustering algorithm can effectively organize sensor nodes and the use of a controlled mobile sink node can mitigate hot spot problem or energy holes. The selection of optimal moving trajectory for sink nodes is an NP-hard problem. In our algorithm, we firstly study an competitive clustering algorithm in which cluster heads are rotated in each round and selected mainly based on their competition range and their residual energy. Besides, we use mobile sink node instead of fixed sink node. The mobile sink node moves at a certain speed along a predefined path and sojourn at some park position to collect data packets. Simulation results validate that competitive clustering algorithm outperforms LEACH and the use of mobile sink node significantly improve the performance of the sensor network.