THWSN: Enhanced Energy-Efficient Clustering Approach for Three-Tier Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Heterogeneous wireless sensor networks (HWSNs) provide realistic application design capabilities. The sensor nodes (SNs) are arranged in groups or clusters. Each cluster has a cluster head (CH). The CH accumulates the sensed data from its SNs to be sent to a base station (BS). SNs have been positioned with batteries, which cannot be replaced. Energy consumption is a major concern for WSNs. In order to achieve efficient mission-critical sensor networks, it is necessary to develop energy-efficient routing protocols. We suggest an innovative and inventive approach to design an enhanced energy-efficient clustering approach (EEECA) to increase the network lifetime and reduce the energy consumption in HWSNs. The proposed protocol is based on the three-tier nodes, namely, standard, intermediate, and advanced nodes. In the clustering procedure, we consider various parameters for selecting the CH, namely, the initial energy of the SNs, the number of alive/dead nodes, and the remaining energy. Extensive performance parameters show that the proposed EEECA-THWSN extends the network lifetime by 25% and decreases the network's energy consumption. The proposed protocol improves the energy efficiency of EEECA-THWSN and significantly increases the network throughput, network lifetime, and network stability.