Medium-Contention Based Energy-Efficient Distributed Clustering (MEDIC) for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

In this paper, we utilize clustering to organize wireless sensors into an energy-efficient hierarchy. We propose a Medium-contention based Energy-efficient DIstributed Clustering (MEDIC) scheme, through which sensors self-organize themselves into energy-efficient clusters by bidding for cluster headship. This scheme is based on a new criterion that can be used by each sensor node to make a distributed decision on whether electing to be a cluster head or a non-head member, which is a fully distributed approach. Although MEDIC uses only local information, it achieves better performance in terms of effective lifetime and its Data/Energy Ratio is 25% higher than native LEACH (Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy), which relies on other routing algorithms to access global information. A complementary exponential data correlation model is also introduced to simulate different data aggregation effect.

Keywords:

• Wireless Sensor Networks
• Energy-Aware Systems
• Clustering
• Distributed Applications

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program Award under Grant N00014-03-1-0466.

The second author would like to thank his Research Assistant Mr. Xiang Hong for helping with part of the simulations.

Notes

21. Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications, 1997.