Mobile relay assisted dynamic clustering in wireless sensor networks

One of the most used networks is the wireless sensor network. Such networks sense the environment and collect data when an event occurs. This data is transmitted to the base station, called the sink for analysis and decision regarding any action required. Sensor nodes sense events and forward data to the sink. This transmission is an energy consuming task and sensor networks are generally energy constraint. Hierarchical approach of using cluster heads has proven to be a good method to deal with this energy crisis and results in better performance of the network in terms of connectivity and communication. Routing algorithm chooses an optimal route from the sensor nodes to the sink for actual data delivery. This paper introduces a mobile relay node in the clustering scheme to enhance the performance of the network by maintaining the clusters and reducing the re-clustering overhead.