A boolean spider monkey optimization based energy efficient clustering approach for WSNs

Wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of densely distributed nodes that are deployed to observe and react to events within the sensor field. In WSNs, energy management and network lifetime optimization are major issues in the designing of cluster-based routing protocols. Clustering is an efficient data gathering technique that effectively reduces the energy consumption by organizing nodes into groups. However, in clustering protocols, cluster heads (CHs) bear additional load for coordinating various activities within the cluster. Improper selection of CHs causes increased energy consumption and also degrades the performance of WSN. Therefore, proper CH selection and their load balancing using efficient routing protocol is a critical aspect for long run operation of WSN. Clustering a network with proper load balancing is an NP-hard problem. To solve such problems having vast search area, optimization algorithm is the preeminent possible solution. Spider monkey optimization (SMO) is a relatively new nature inspired evolutionary algorithm based on the foraging behaviour of spider monkeys. It has proved its worth for benchmark functions optimization and antenna design problems. In this paper, SMO based threshold-sensitive energy-efficient clustering protocol is proposed to prolong network lifetime with an intend to extend the stability period of the network. Dual-hop communication between CHs and BS is utilized to achieve load balancing of distant CHs and energy minimization. The results demonstrate that the proposed protocol significantly outperforms existing protocols in terms of energy consumption, system lifetime and stability period.