An Energy-Efficient Clustering Protocol for the Lifetime Elongation of Wireless Sensors in IoT Networks

Abstract

The efficient use of energy is a crucial difficulty that must be addressed when constructing a wireless sensor network (WSN)-based Internet of Things. Thousands of battery-powered tiny devices known as sensors make up these networks. Sensors are limited-resource devices with a finite amount of energy. The lifetime of the entire network may be extended significantly by reducing the energy consumption of these nodes. WSN-based IoT clustering is a rapidly growing field of study. The main problems in clustered WSN-based IoT are determining the right number of clusters and then picking a cluster head (CH) node inside every created cluster. In this paper, we introduce a unique clustering approach for WSN-based IoT systems based on fuzzy c-means (FCM). The approach employs a FCM methodology to form the clusters and a decrease in the total energy used on each cluster to identify the optimal cluster head (CH). Instead of changing CHs with dynamic clustering at each period, we aim to apply an energy threshold to postulate CH dynamicity based on current energy levels, therefore extending the sensor network life span.