An Adaptive, LLC-based and Hierarchical Power-aware Routing Algorithm

In a wireless sensor network (WSN), we can rarely assume the static network topology hypothesis. In fact, the topology may change due to unit and communication faults, energy availability, and environmental dynamics-situations that could prevent the acquired data to be successfully routed to the base station (BS). In recent years, many self-organizing routing algorithms that provide topology adaptation in an energy-aware context at the network level have been proposed. Among these, hierarchical algorithms are particularly adequate solutions for their scalability, power efficiency, extended network lifetime, and intrinsic adaptability abilities. This paper suggests a k-level hierarchical extension of the Low-energy Localized Clustering (LLC) algorithm that takes into account the estimate of the residual energy of nodes, the aggregation degree, and uniform coverage level of the monitoring area as well as extended lifetime for the network nodes. The effectiveness of the proposed solution has been validated with an ad hoc simulator and experimental investigations.