Simple Clustering for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Traditional Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are designed for connecting pure electronic or mechanical sensors through wireless communication. Nowadays, WSNs are combined with other technologies like big data and cloud for data management. While combining the sensors (low level devices) with a high end network like Internet, data communication should be taken care of in the gateway between these two networks. With this type of WSNs, if all the sensors are in direct communication with the high end network, then a lot of energy will be consumed, requiring complex protocols for making this communication possible. So, to reduce the energy wastage, the clustering concept is used in WSN. Although so many complex and innovative clustering techniques are available for WSN, this paper describes a very simple clustering technique for environmental monitoring WSN with proven results.

Keywords

• clustering algorithms
• data transfer
• energy consumption
• radiofrequency
• sensor systems and applications
• zigbee