ABSTRACT

The use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is anticipated to bring enormous changes in data gathering, processing and dissemination for different environments and applications. However, a WSN is a power constrained system, since nodes run on limited power batteries which shorten its lifespan. Prolonging the network lifetime depends on efficient management of sensing node energy resource. Hierarchical routing protocols are best known in regard to energy efficiency. By using a clustering technique hierarchical routing protocols greatly minimize energy consumed in collecting and disseminating data. Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) is one of the fundamental protocols in this class. In this paper we propose Advanced LEACH (A-LEACH), a heterogeneous-energy protocol to decrease probability of failure nodes and to prolong the time interval before the death of the first node (we refer to as stability period) and increasing the lifetime in heterogeneous WSNs, which is crucial for many applications.