Sensors 2012, 12, 11113-11153; doi:10.

3390/s120811113
OPEN ACCESS

sensors
ISSN 1424-8220
www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
Review

A Survey on Clustering Routing Protocols in

Wireless Sensor Networks
Xuxun Liu

School of Electronic and Information Engineering, South China University of Technology,

Guangzhou 510641, China; E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel./Fax: +86-20-8711-2490

Received: 2 May 2012; in revised form: 26 July 2012 / Accepted: 6 August 2012 /
Published: 9 August 2012

Abstract: The past few years have witnessed increased interest in the potential use of
wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in a wide range of applications and it has become a hot
research area. Based on network structure, routing protocols in WSNs can be divided into
two categories: flat routing and hierarchical or clustering routing. Owing to a variety of
advantages, clustering is becoming an active branch of routing technology in WSNs. In this
paper, we present a comprehensive and fine grained survey on clustering routing protocols
proposed in the literature for WSNs. We outline the advantages and objectives of clustering
for WSNs, and develop a novel taxonomy of WSN clustering routing methods based on
complete and detailed clustering attributes. In particular, we systematically analyze a few
prominent WSN clustering routing protocols and compare these different approaches
according to our taxonomy and several significant metrics. Finally, we summarize and
conclude the paper with some future directions.

Keywords: wireless sensor networks; clustering routing; cluster construction; data

transmission; taxonomy

1. Introduction

Owing to the advances and growth in Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) technology and
wireless communication technology, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are becoming increasingly
attractive for numerous application areas, such as military reconnaissance, disaster management,
security surveillance, habitat monitoring, medical and health, industrial automation, etc. [1,2]. Thus,
WSNs have managed to establish the connection between the physical world, the computing world and
Sensors 2012, 12 11114

human society. In general, a WSN consists of a large number of tiny sensor nodes distributed over a
large area with one or more powerful sinks or base stations (BSs) collecting information from these
sensor nodes. All sensor nodes have limited power supply and have the capabilities of information
sensing, data processing and wireless communication.
Routing is one of the critical technologies in WSNs. Opposed to traditional ad hoc networks,
routing in WSNs is more challenging as a result of their inherent characteristics [3,4].
Firstly, resources are greatly constrained in terms of power supply, processing capability and
transmission bandwidth. Secondly, it is difficult to design a global addressing scheme as Internet
Protocol (IP). Furthermore, IP cannot be applied to WSNs, since address updating in a large-scale or
dynamic WSN can result in heavy overhead. Thirdly, due to the limited resources, it is hard for routing
to cope with unpredictable and frequent topology changes, especially in a mobile environment.
Fourthly, data collection by many sensor nodes usually results in a high probability of data redundancy,
which must be considered by routing protocols. Fifthly, most applications of WSNs require the only
communication scheme of many-to-one, i.e., from multiple sources to one particular sink, rather than
multicast or peer to peer. Finally, in time-constrained applications of WSNs, data transmissions should
be accomplished within a certain period of time. Thus, bounded latency for data transmissions must be
taken into consideration in this kind of applications. Nevertheless, energy conservation is more
important than quality of service (QoS) in most applications in that all sensor nodes are constrained
with energy which is directly related to network lifetime.
Based on network structure, routing protocols in WSNs can be coarsely divided into two categories:
flat routing and hierarchical routing. In a flat topology, all nodes perform the same tasks and have the
same functionalities in the network. Data transmission is performed hop by hop usually using the form
of flooding. The typical flat routings in WSNs include Flooding and Gossiping [5], Sensor Protocols
for Information via Negotiation (SPIN) [6], Directed Diffusion (DD) [7], Rumor [8], Greedy Perimeter
Stateless Routing (GPSR) [9], Trajectory Based Forwarding (TBF) [10], Energy-Aware Routing
(EAR) [11], Gradient-Based Routing (GBR) [12], Sequential Assignment Routing (SAR) [13], etc.
In small-scale networks flat routing protocols are relatively effective. However, it is relatively
undesirable in large-scale networks because resources are limited, but all sensor nodes generate more
data processing and bandwidth usage. On the other hand, in a hierarchical topology, nodes perform
different tasks in WSNs and typically are organized into lots of clusters according to specific
requirements or metrics. Generally, each cluster comprises a leader referred to as cluster head (CH)
and other member nodes (MNs) or ordinary nodes (ONs), and the CHs can be organized into further
hierarchical levels. In general, nodes with higher energy act as CH and perform the task of data
processing and information transmission, while nodes with low energy act as MNs and perform the task
of information sensing. The typical clustering routings protocols in WSNs include Low-energy Adaptive
Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) [14], Hybrid Energy-Efficient Distributed clustering (HEED) [15],
Distributed Weight-based Energy-efficient Hierarchical Clustering protocol (DWEHC) [16],
Position-based Aggregator Node Election protocol (PANEL) [17,18], Two-Level Hierarchy LEACH
(TL-LEACH) [19], Unequal Clustering Size (UCS) model [20], Energy Efficient Clustering Scheme
(EECS) [21,22], Energy-Efficient Uneven Clustering (EEUC) algorithm [23], Algorithm for Cluster
Establishment (ACE) [24], Base-Station Controlled Dynamic Clustering Protocol (BCDCP) [25],
Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems (PEGASIS) [26], Threshold sensitive
Sensors 2012, 12 11115

Energy Efficient sensor Network protocol (TEEN) [27], The Adaptive Threshold sensitive Energy
Efficient sensor Network protocol (APTEEN) [28], Two-Tier Data Dissemination (TTDD) [29],
Concentric Clustering Scheme (CCS) [30], Hierarchical Geographic Multicast Routing (HGMR) [31],
and etc. Clustering routing is becoming an active branch of routing technology in WSNs on account of
a variety of advantages, such as more scalability, data aggregation/fusion, less load, less energy
consumption, more robustness, etc.
In the last few years, a relatively large number of clustering routing protocols have been developed
for WSNs. This paper is an attempt to comprehensively review and critically discuss the most
prominent clustering routing algorithms that have been developed for WSNs. The goals of this survey
can be summarized as follows: (1) To make a large audience aware of the existence and of the usually
good performance of a number of clustering routing protocols in WSNs; (2) To facilitate the reading as
well as to provide a sound framework by a detailed taxonomy of clustering routing algorithms; (3) To
highlight a few strengths and weaknesses of the proposed algorithms with respect to the performance
of the clustering routing methods in WSNs; (4) To help application designers identify alternative
solutions and select appropriate strategies by comparison of different clustering routing approaches.
Recently, a few surveys of clustering routing methods for WSNs have been presented. These
surveys mainly aim at outlining some characters of clustering and summarizing some popular
clustering routing algorithms with comparison based on different attributes and performances. In this
study, we present a comprehensive survey of different clustering routing protocols proposed in recent
years. Our work differs from other surveys of WSN clustering routing algorithms as follows: (1) As far
as we know, this survey is the first attempt to comprehensively review and critically discuss the most
prominent clustering routing methods developed for WSNs; (2) It presents a novel taxonomy of
clustering methods for WSNs, which is, to the best of our knowledge, the most comprehensive and
fine-grained taxonomy of WSN clustering approaches at present; (3) This is the first time that the
popular clustering routing protocols are surveyed based on the classification of different algorithm-
stages; (4) It summarizes the previous surveys of WSN clustering routing protocols. As far as we know,
our work is the first attempt to outline these contributions made by other researchers.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides an overview of related work
on clustering routing methods in WSNs. Section 3 outlines the advantages and objectives of clustering
for WSNs. In Section 4, we present a novel taxonomy of clustering routing algorithms in WSNs.
In Section 5, we systematically analyze the prominent WSN clustering routing protocols with
discussion on their respective merits and demerits. In Section 6, we compare different approaches for
WSN clustering routing. Finally, Section 7 summarizes and concludes this paper.

2. Related Work

A survey of clustering algorithms for WSNs was presented by Abbasi et al. [32]. The authors of that
survey presented a taxonomy and classification of typical clustering schemes, then summarized different
clustering algorithms for WSNs based on classification of variable convergence time protocols and
constant convergence time algorithms, and highlighted their objectives, features, complexity, etc.
Finally, these clustering approaches were compared based on a few metrics such as convergence rate,
cluster stability, cluster overlapping, location-awareness and support for node mobility.
Sensors 2012, 12 11116

Arboleda et al. [33] presented a comparison survey between different clustering protocols. The
authors of the survey discussed some basic concepts related to the clustering process, such as cluster
structure, cluster types, clustering advantages, and briefly analyzed LEACH-based protocols as well as
proactive and reactive algorithms in WSNs. The main characteristics of these protocols were compared
and the evidences where they can be used currently were outlined.
Kumarawadu et al. [34] surveyed the clustering algorithms available for WSNs and classified them
based on the cluster formation parameters and CH election criteria. The authors of the survey also
studied the key design challenges and discussed the performance issues related clustering protocols
based on the classification of identity-based clustering algorithms, neighborhood information based
clustering algorithms, probabilistic clustering algorithms and biologically inspired clustering algorithms.
Different clustering schemes are discussed by Deosarkar et al. [35], with special emphasis on their
CH selection strategies based on the classification of deterministic scheme, adaptive scheme and
combined metric scheme. The costs of CH selection were compared with respect to cluster formation,
distribution of CHs and creation of clusters. Besides, a need of more scalable, energy efficient and
stable clustering scheme for data gathering in WSNs was put forward.
Jiang et al. [36] discussed a total of three prominent advantages of clustering methods for WSNs,
such as more scalability, less overheads, and easy maintenance, and then present a classification of
WSN clustering schemes based on a total of eight clustering attributes. The authors also analyzed
altogether six popular WSN clustering algorithms, such as LEACH, PEGASIS, HEED, EEUC, and
etc., and compared these WSN clustering algorithms, including various attributes.
Maimour et al. [37] considered clustering routing protocols to achieve energy efficiency in WSNs
and presented a review on clustering algorithms from the perspective of data routing. A simple
classification of clustering routing protocols is proposed in the review. Totally nine typical clustering
protocols including two classes, pre-established clustering routing algorithms and on-demand clustering
routing algorithms, are summarized in respectively. Besides, some future research directions are
presented in the review.
The operations of some clustering protocols were discussed in the survey presented in [38], and the
advantages and limitations of each one of these algorithms were analyzed in brief. The authors of the
survey selected only seven popular clustering algorithms for WSNs, such as LEACH, TL-LEACH,
EECS, TEEN, APTEEN, and etc. Additionally, the survey compared these clustering protocols in
terms of energy consumption and network lifetime.
A survey on clustering algorithms for WSNs was presented by Boyinbode et al. [39]. The main
challenges for clustering algorithms were discussed and altogether nine popular clustering algorithms
for WSNs such as LEACH, TL-LEACH, EECS, HEED, EEUC, etc. were simply summarized in the
survey. The authors also compared these clustering algorithms based on metrics such as residual
energy, uniformity of CH distribution, cluster size, delay, hop distance and cluster formation
methodology.
A survey of state-of-the-art routing techniques for WSNs was presented in [40], whose authors
outlined the clustering architecture in WSNs and presented a simple classification based on only three
attributes, i.e., parameters used for CH election, whether there exist a centralized control during
clustering, and hops between nodes and CH in intra-cluster communication. Furthermore, the survey
highlighted the challenges in clustering WSNs and briefly introduced a few clustering routing techniques.
Sensors 2012, 12 11117

Xu et al. [41] have made a simple survey of clustering routing protocols, including only six typical
clustering algorithms. The authors of the survey simply compared these clustering routing algorithms
based on some performance parameters, including energy conservation, network lifetime, data
aggregation, robustness, scalability, security, and etc.
Another simple survey on clustering routing algorithms was given by Joshi [42]. Only eight
popular clustering routing protocols are covered in this survey, such as LEACH, PEGASIS, TEEN,
APTEEN, etc. The authors of the survey briefly compared these clustering routing approached based
on energy conservation and the network lifetime.
An overview of Haneef and Deng [43] focuses on design challenges and comparative analysis of
WSN clustering routing algorithms for improving the network lifetime. The authors of the overview
analyzed many challenging factors that influenced design of routing protocols in WSNs, and presented
a simple classification of routing protocols. Besides, many efficient clustering based classical WSN
routing protocols with comparative analysis were discussed in the overview.
Finally, we summarize the previous work related to ours in Table 1, which highlights the main
contributions of each author along with the year of the survey. However, our work differs from the
others due to a few distinctive characteristics, which are described in last section.

Table 1. Summary of Previous Surveys on Clustering Routing Protocols in WSNs

Year Authors Literature Main contributions

Comparison of clustering algorithms ①Discussion of basic concepts related to the clustering process
2006 Arboleda. et al. and protocols for wireless sensor ②Analysis of LEACH-based protocols
networks [33] ③Survey of proactive and reactive algorithms in WSNs

①Presentation of a taxonomy of typical clustering schemes

A survey on clustering algorithms for ②Survey of variable convergence time clustering protocols and
2007 Abbasi et al.
wireless sensor networks [32] constant convergence time clustering algorithms in WSNs
③Comparison of popular clustering methods

①Presentation of a classification based on cluster-formation

Algorithms for node clustering in
parameters and CH election criteria
2008 Kumarawadu et al. wireless sensor networks:
②Discussion of the key design challenges of WSN clustering
a survey [34]
③Analysis of the performance issues related WSN clustering

①Discussion of CH selection strategies based on the

Cluster head selection in clustering classification of deterministic scheme, adaptive scheme and
2008 Deosarkar et al. algorithms for wireless sensor combined metric scheme
networks: a survey [35] ②Comparison of the costs of CH selection with respect to
cluster formation, distribution of CHs and creation of clusters

①Presentation of a classification of WSN clustering schemes

Towards clustering algorithms in
based on 8 clustering attributes
2009 Jiang et al. wireless sensor networks-a survey
②Analysis of popular WSN clustering algorithms
[36]
③Comparison of popular WSN clustering algorithms
Sensors 2012, 12 11118

Table 1. Cont.

Year Authors Literature Main contributions

①Presentation of a classification of WSN clustering algorithms

Cluster-based routing protocols for
②Discussion of typical WSN clustering protocols based on
2010 Maimour et al. energy-efficiency in wireless sensor
pre-established and on-demand manners
networks [37]
③Summary of some future research directions

①Discussion of typical clustering routing protocols for WSNs

Hierarchical routing in wireless
2010 Lotf et al. ②Comparison of clustering routing algorithms based on energy
sensor networks: a survey [38]
consumption and network lifetime

①Discussion of the main challenges for WSN clustering

A survey on clustering algorithms for ②Analysis of popular clustering algorithms for WSNs
2010 Boyinbode et al.
wireless sensor networks [39] ③Comparison of popular WSN clustering algorithms based on
many attributes

Cluster-based routing protocols in ①Presentation of a classification based on three attributes

2011 Wei et al. wireless sensor networks: ②Discussion of the challenges in WSN clustering
a survey [40] ③Analysis of popular clustering routing techniques

Comparison study to hierarchical

①Analysis of popular clustering routing protocols in WSNs
2011 Xu et al. routing protocols in wireless sensor
②Comparison of popular WSN clustering routing algorithms
networks [41]

① Discussion of familiar clustering routing algorithms in

A survey of hierarchical routing
WSNs
2011 Joshi et al. protocols in wireless sensor
②Comparison of familiar WSN clustering routing protocols
network [42]
based on energy conservation and network lifetime

Design challenges and comparative ①Discussion of the challenging factors in WSN clustering
analysis of cluster based routing ②Presentation of a classification of routing protocols in WSNs
2012 Haneef et al. protocols used in wireless sensor ③Analysis of classical WSN clustering routing protocols
networks for improving network life ④ Comparison of classical clustering routing algorithms for
time [43] WSNs

3. Advantages and Objectives of Clustering

Compared with flat routing protocols in WSNs, clustering routing protocols have a variety of
advantages, such as more scalability, less load, less energy consumption and more robustness. In this
section, we summarize these advantages as well as the objectives of WSN clustering as follows:
More Scalability: In s clustering routing scheme, sensor nodes are divided into a variety of clusters
with different assignment levels. The CHs are responsible for data aggregation, information
dissemination and network management, and the MNs for events sensing and information collecting in
their surroundings. Clustering topology can localize the route set up within the cluster and thus reduce
the size of the routing table stored at the individual sensor nodes [32,44]. Compared with a flat
topology, this kind of network topology is easier to manage, and more scalable to respond to events in
the environment [3].
Sensors 2012, 12 11119

Data Aggregation/Fusion: Data aggregation/fusion, which is the process of aggregating the data
from multiple nodes to eliminate redundant transmission and provide fused data to the BS, is an
effectual technique for WSNs to save energy [45]. The most popular data aggregation/fusion method is
clustering data aggregation, in which each CH aggregates the collected data and transmits the fused
data to the BS [46]. Usually CHs are formed a tree structure to transmit aggregated data by multi-
hopping through other CHs which results in significant energy savings [47].
Less Load: Since sensors might generate significant redundant data, data aggregation or fusion has
emerged as an important tenet and objective in WSNs. The main idea of data aggregation or fusion is
to combine data from different sources to eliminate redundant data transmissions, and provide a rich
and multi-dimensional view of the targets being monitored [3,4]. Many clustering routing schemes
with data aggregation capabilities require careful selection for clustering approach. For clustering
topology, all cluster members only send data to CHs, and data aggregation is performed at the CHs,
which help to dramatically reduce transmission data and save energy. In addition, the routes are set up
within the clusters which thus reduce the size of the routing table stored at the individual sensor
nodes [32,44].
Less Energy: Consumption: In clustering routing scheme, data aggregation helps to dramatically
reduce transmission data and save energy. Moreover, clustering with intra-cluster and inter-cluster
communications can reduce the number of sensor nodes performing the task of long distance
communications, thus allowing less energy consumption for the entire network. In addition, only CHs
perform the task of data transmission in clustering routing scheme, which can save a great deal of
energy consumption.
More Robustness: Clustering routing scheme makes it more convenient for network topology
control and responding to network changes comprising node increasing, node mobility and unpredicted
failures, etc. A clustering routing scheme only needs to cope with these changes within individual
clusters, thus the entire network is more robust and more convenient for management. In order to share
the CH responsibility, CHs are generally rotated among all the sensor nodes to avoid the single point
of failure in clustering routing algorithms.
Collision Avoidance: In the multi-hop flat model, the wireless medium is shared and managed by
individual nodes, thus this model can result in low efficiency in the resource usage. On the other hand,
in the multi-hop clustering model, a WSN is divided into clusters and data communications between
sensor nodes comprise two modes, i.e., intra-cluster and inter-cluster, respectively for data collection
and for data transmissions. Accordingly, resources can be allocated orthogonally to each cluster to
reduce collisions between clusters and be reused cluster by cluster [48]. As a result, the multi-hop
clustering model is appropriate for large-scale WSNs.
Latency Reduction: When a WSN is divided into clusters, only CHs perform the task of data
transmissions out of the cluster. The mode of data transmissions only out of the cluster helps avoiding
collisions between the nodes. Accordingly latency is reduced. Furthermore, data transmission is
performed hop by hop usually using the form of flooding in flat routing scheme, but only CHs perform
the task of data transmission in clustering routing scheme, which can decrease hops from data source
to the BS, accordingly decrease latency.
Load Balancing: Load balancing is an essential consideration aiming at prolonging the network
lifetime in WSNs. Even distribution of sensor nodes among the clusters is usually considered for
Sensors 2012, 12 11120

cluster construction where CHs perform the task of data processing and intra-cluster management.
In general, constructing equal-sized clusters is adopted for prolonging the network lifetime since it
prevents the premature energy exhaustion of CHs. Besides, multi-path routing is a method to achieve
load balancing.
Fault-Tolerance: Due to the applicability of WSNs in a good many dynamic scenarios, sensor
nodes may suffer from energy depletion, transmission errors, hardware malfunction, malicious attacks
and so on. With applications such as hurricane modeling and tracking envisioned to utilize a large
number of small sensor nodes, the cost of each sensor node is constrained. Owing to significant
constraints on the cost, and therefore on the quality of sensor motes, and the often hostile environments
in which they are deployed, sensor networks are prone to failure. Thus, fault-tolerance is an important
challenge in WSNs [49]. In order to avoid the loss of significant data from key sensor nodes, fault-
tolerance of CHs is usually required in this kind of applications, thus effective fault-tolerant
approaches must be designed in WSNs. Re-clustering is the most intuitive method to recover from a
cluster failure, though it usually disarranges the on-going operation. Assignment of CH backup is a
viable scheme for recovery from a CH failure.
Guarantee of Connectivity: Sensor nodes usually transmit data to one or more BSs via a single-hop
or multi-hop routing in WSNs, thus whether or not the data is successfully delivered to the BS is
mainly determined by the connectivity of each node to its next hop node along the path. Furthermore,
sensor nodes that cannot communicate with any other sensor node will get isolated and their data can
never be transmitted to the BS. Therefore, guarantee of connectivity is an essential goal of clustering
routing protocols in WSNs [3,4]. An important example is when some information concerning all the
sensor nodes needs to be collected by a designated fusion node in clustering routing protocols [50].
Energy Hole Avoidance: Generally, multi-hop routing is used to deliver the collected data to a sink
or a BS. In those networks, the traffic transmitted by each node includes both self-generated and
relayed traffic. Regardless of MAC protocols, the sensor nodes closer to the BS have to transmit more
packets than those far away from the BS [51]. As a result, the nodes closer to the BS to deplete their
energy first, leaving a hole near the BS, partitioning the whole network, and preventing the outside
nodes from sending information to the BS, while many remaining nodes still have a plenty of energy.
This phenomenon is called energy hole [52]. Mechanisms of energy hole avoidance, i.e., energy
consumption balancing, can be classified into three groups: node deployment, load balancing, as well
as energy mapping and assigning [53]. Especially, uneven clustering is one of the methods of load
balancing. In this method, a smaller cluster radius near the sink and a larger cluster radius away from
the sink are defined respectively, so the energy consumption of processing data in inter-cluster is less
for cluster with smaller radius, and thus more energy can be used to relay data from remote nodes [54].
On the other hand, it is not easy to analyze the optimization of cluster radius theoretically [55].
Maximizing of the Network Lifetime: Network lifetime is an inevitable consideration in WSNs,
because sensor nodes are constrained in power supply, processing capability and transmission
bandwidth, especially for applications of harsh environments. Usually it is indispensable to minimize
the energy consumption for intra-cluster communication by CHs which are richer in resources than
ONs. Besides, sensor nodes that are close to most of the sensor nodes in the clusters should be prone to
be CHs. Additionally, the aim of energy-aware idea is to select those routes that are expected to
Sensors 2012, 12 11121

prolong the network lifetime in inter-cluster communications, and the routes composed of nodes with
higher energy resources should be preferred.
Quality of Service: The network applications and the functionalities of WSNs prompt the requirement
of quality of service (QoS). Usually, effective sample, less delay and temporary precision are required. It
is difficult for all the routing protocols to satisfy all the requirements of QoS, because some demands
may breach one or more protocol principles. Existing clustering routing approaches in WSNs mainly
focus on increasing energy efficient rather than QoS support. QoS metrics must be taken into account in
many real-time applications, such as battle-target tracking, emergent-event monitoring, and etc.

4. Taxonomy of Clustering Schemes

In the literature, clustering attributes in WSNs, generally, can be roughly classified into cluster
characteristics, cluster-head characteristics, clustering process and entire proceeding of the algorithm.
In this section, we discuss a lot of detailed clustering attributes for WSNs, and propose a more
comprehensive and fine-grained taxonomy compared to that of previous work. The categories included
in the taxonomy are individually analyzed in the subsections that follow.

4.1. Classification of Clustering Attributes in WSNs

4.1.1. Cluster Characteristics

Variability of Cluster Count: Based on variability of cluster count, clustering schemes can be classified
into two types: fixed and variable ones. In the former scheme, the set of cluster-head are predetermined
and the number of clusters is fixed. However, the number of clusters is variable in the latter scheme, in
which CHs are selected, randomly or based on some rules, from the deployed sensor nodes.
Uniformity of Cluster Sizes: In the light of uniformity of cluster sizes, clustering routing protocols
in WSNs can be classified into two classes: even and uneven ones, respectively with the same size
clusters and different size clusters in the network. In general, clustering with different sizes clusters is
used to achieve more uniform energy consumption and avoid energy hole.
Intra-Cluster Routing: According to the methods of inter-cluster routing, clustering routing manners
in WSNs also include two classes: single-hop intra-cluster routing methods and multiple-hop ones.
For the manner of intra-cluster single-hop, all MNs in the cluster transmit data to the corresponding CH
directly. Instead, data relaying is used when MNs communicate with the corresponding CH in the cluster.
Inter-Cluster Routing: Based on the manners of inter-cluster routing, clustering routing protocols in
WSNs include two classes: single-hop inter-cluster routing manners and multiple-hop ones. For the
manner of inter-cluster single-hop, all CHs communicate with the BS directly. In contrast to it, data
relaying is used by CHs in the routing scheme of inter-cluster multiple-hop.

4.1.2. Cluster-Head Characteristics

Existence: Based on whether there exist cluster-heads within a cluster, clustering schemes can be
grouped into cluster-head based and non-cluster-head based clustering. In the former schemes, there
exist at least one CH within a cluster, but there aren’t any CHs within a cluster in the latter schemes,
such as some chain based clustering algorithms.
Sensors 2012, 12 11122

Difference of Capabilities: Based on uniformity of energy assignment for sensor nodes, clustering
schemes in WSNs can be classified into homogeneous or heterogeneous ones. In homogeneous
schemes, all the sensor nodes are assigned with equal energy, computation, and communication
resources and CHs are designated according to a random way or other criteria. However, sensor nodes
are assigned with unequal capabilities in heterogeneous environment, in which the roles of CHs are
pre-assigned to sensor nodes with more capabilities.
Mobility: According to the mobility attributes of CHs, clustering approaches in WSNs also can be
grouped into mobile and stationary manners. In the former manners, CHs are mobile and membership
dynamically change, thus a cluster would need to be continuously maintained. Contrary to it, CHs are
stationary and can keep a stable cluster, which is easier to be managed. Sometimes, a CH can travel for
limited distances to reposition itself for better network performance [32].
Role: A CH can simply act as a relay for the traffic generated by the sensor nodes in its cluster or
perform aggregation/fusion of collected information from sensor nodes in its cluster. Sometime,
a cluster head acts as a sink/BS that takes actions based on the detected phenomena or targets [32].
It is worth mentioning, sometimes a CH acts in more than one role.

4.1.3. Clustering Process

Control Manners: Based on control manners of clustering, clustering routing methods in WSNs can
be grouped into centralized, distributed and hybrid ones. In centralized methods, a sink or CH requires
global information of the network or the cluster to control the network or the cluster. In distributed
approaches, a sensor node is able to become a CH or to join a formed cluster on its own initiative
without global information of the network or the cluster. Hybrid schemes are composed of centralized
and distributed approaches. In this environment, distributed approaches are used for coordination
between CHs, and centralized manners are performed for CHs to build individual clusters.
Execution Nature: Considering the execution nature of cluster formation, clustering modes in
WSNs can be classified into two classes: probabilistic or iterative ones. In probabilistic clustering,
a probability assigned to all sensor nodes is used to determine the roles of the sensor nodes. In other
words, each sensor node can independently decide on its own roles. Nevertheless, every node must
wait until a certain number of iterations is achieved or for certain nodes to decide their roles before
making a decision in iterative clustering manner.
Convergence Time: Considering the convergence time, clustering methods in WSNs can be grouped
into variable and constant convergence time ones. The convergence time depends on the number of
nodes in the network in variable convergence algorithms, which accommodate well to small-scale
networks. After a fixed number of iterations, constant convergence time algorithms certainly converge
regardless of the scale of the networks.
Parameters for CH Election: Based on the parameters used for CH election, clustering approaches
can be categorized as deterministic, adaptive, and random ones. In deterministic schemes, special
inherent attributes of the sensor nodes are considered, such as the identifier (ID), number of neighbors
they have. In adaptive manners, CHs are elected from the deployed sensor nodes with higher weights,
which includes such as residual energy, communication cost, and etc. In random modes, mainly used
Sensors 2012, 12 11123

in secure clustering algorithms, CHs are elected randomly without regard to any other metrics like
residual energy, communication cost, etc.
Proactivity: According to the proactivity of clustering routing, clustering routing methods can be
grouped into proactive, reactive, and hybrid ones. In proactive networks, all routes between source and
the BS are computed and maintained before they are really needed regardless of the data traffic.
Once a message arrives, it travels through a predetermined route to the BS. In contrast, no
predetermined routes exist in reactive networks, in which the routing is chosen when a message needs
to be delivered from source to the BS. Hybrid approaches use a combination of the above two ideas.
For this kind of clustering routing, sometimes proactive clustering mode is adopted, but at other times
reactive mode is used. For instance, APTEEN [28] is a classical hybrid approach. According to the
needs of users, this protocol adjusts some parameters and switches between proactive and reactive
modes to transmit data.
Objectives: As discussed in the previous section, a few objectives have been pursued for cluster
construction, such as data aggregation/fusion, load balancing, fault-tolerance, guarantee of
connectivity, lifetime extension, quality of service, etc. Accordingly, clustering methods in WSNs can
be classified into the above categories based on different objectives. It is worth mentioning that a
clustering algorithm, generally, has more than one objective.

4.1.4. Entire Proceeding of Algorithm

Algorithm Stages: In general, a complete clustering routing algorithm comprises two basic stages, i.e.,
cluster construction and data transmission, but the consideration degree of algorithms may differ in
different stages. Based on algorithm stages of whole process of clustering algorithms, clustering
routing protocols in WSNs can be classified into cluster construction based and data transmission
based ones. In the former algorithm, cluster construction is mainly discussed, while data transmission
is concerned less or performed by a relatively simple way. As contrary to it, the latter one chiefly takes
data transmission into account, but care less about cluster formation.

4.2. Taxonomy of Clustering Methods in WSNs

In this subsection, we integrate the set of attributes that can be use to categorize and differentiate
clustering methods for WSNs. Based on the discussion above, a relatively comprehensive and
fine-grained taxonomy of clustering methods in WSNs is proposed, which is summarized in Figure 1.

5. Analysis of Prominent Clustering Routing Protocols in WSNs

In this section, we present a more comprehensive and critical survey of prominent clustering routing
protocols for WSNs compared with previous work. We analyze 16 classical WSN clustering routing
algorithms in detail based on the classification of different algorithm-stages, and highlight their
characteristics with advantages and disadvantages.
Sensors 2012, 12 11124

Figure 1. Taxonomy of Clustering Methods in WSNs.

Fixed
Variability of cluster count
Variable
Even
Uniformity of cluster sizes
Cluster Uneven
characteristics Single-hop
Intra-cluster routing
Multiple-hop
Single-hop
Inter-cluster routing
Multiple-hop
Cluster-head based
Existence
Non-cluster-head based
Homogeneous
Difference of capabilities
Cluster-head Heterogeneous
characteristics Mobile
Mobility
Stationary
Relay
Role Aggregation/fusion
Sink/base station
Centralized
Control manners Distributed
Taxonomy of Hybrid
clustering methods Probabilistic
Execution nature
Iterative
Variable
Convergence time
Constant
Deterministic
Parameters for CH election Adaptive
Clustering process
Random
Proactive
Proactivity Reactive
Hybrid
Data aggregation/fusion
Load balancing
Fault-tolerance
Objectives Guarantee of connectivity
Lifetime extension
Quality of service
Others
Entire proceeding Cluster construction
of algorithm Algorithm stages
Data transmission

5.1. Cluster-Construction Based Clustering Routing Protocols

5.1.1. LEACH

Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH), proposed by Heinzelman et al. [14], is one
of the pioneering clustering routing approaches for WSNs. The basic idea of LEACH has been an
inspiration for many subsequent clustering routing protocols. The main objective of LEACH is to
Sensors 2012, 12 11125

select sensor nodes as CHs by rotation, so the high energy dissipation in communicating with the BS is
spread to all sensor nodes in the network.
The operation of LEACH is broken up into lots of rounds, where each round is separated into two
phases, the set-up phase and the steady-state phase. In the set-up phase the clusters are organized,
while in the steady-state phase data is delivered to the BS. During the set-up phase, each node decides
whether or not to become a CH for the current round. This decision is based on the suggested
percentage of CHs for the network and the number of times the node has been a CH so far. This
decision is made by the node choosing a random number between 0 and 1. The node becomes a CH for
the current round if the number is less than the following threshold:
 P
 , if n  G
  1
T (n)  1  P r mod  (1)
  P
0,
 otherwise

where P is the desired percentage of CHs, r is the current round, and G is the set of nodes that have
not been elected CHs in the last 1/P rounds. When a node is elected CH successfully, it broadcasts an
advertisement message to the other nodes. According to the received signal strength of the
advertisement, other nodes decide to which cluster it will join for this round and send a membership
message to its CH. In order to evenly distribute energy load among sensor nodes, CHs rotation is
performed at each round by generating a new advertisement phase based on Equation (1). During the
steady-state phase, the sensor nodes sense and transmit data to the CHs. The CHs compress data
arriving from nodes that belong to the respective cluster, and send an aggregated or fused packet to the
BS directly. Besides, LEACH uses a TDMA/code-division multiple access (CDMA) MAC to reduce
inter-cluster and intra-cluster collisions. After a certain time, which is determined a priori, the network
goes back into the set-up phase again and enters another round of CH election. Figure 2 showed the
basic topology of LEACH.

Figure 2. The Basic Topology of LEACH.

BS

MN
CH

LEACH is a completely distributed approach and requires no global information of network. In the
literature, various modifications have been made to the LEACH protocol, which form LEACH family,
such as TL-LEACH [19], E-LEACH [56], M-LEACH [57], LEACH-C [58], V-LEACH [59],
LEACH-FL [60], W-LEACH [61], T-LEACH [62], etc. The advantages of LEACH include the
Sensors 2012, 12 11126

following [63]: (1) Any node that served as a CH in certain round cannot be selected as the CH again,
so each node can equally share the load imposed upon CHs to some extent; (2) Utilizing a TDMA
schedule prevents CHs from unnecessary collisions; (3) Cluster members can open or close communication
interfaces in compliance with their allocated time slots to avoid excessive energy dissipation.
However, there exist a few disadvantages in LEACH as follows. (1) It performs the single-hop
inter-cluster, directly from CHs to the BS, routing method, which is not applicable to large-region
networks. It is not always a realistic assumption for single-hop inter-cluster routing with long
communication range. Besides, long-range communications directly from CHs to the BS can breed too
much energy consumption; (2) Despite the fact that CHs rotation is performed at each round to achieve
load balancing, LEACH cannot ensure real load balancing in the case of sensor nodes with different
amounts of initial energy, because CHs are elected in terms of probabilities without energy
considerations. Sensor nodes, with lower initial energy, that act as CHs for the same number of rounds
as other sensor nodes, with higher initial energy, will die prematurely. This could bring about energy
holes and coverage problems; (3) Since CH election is performed in terms of probabilities, it is hard
for the predetermined CHs to be uniformly distributed throughout the network. Thereby there exist the
elected CHs that are concentrated in one part of the network and some nodes that have not any CHs in
their vicinity; (4) The idea of dynamic clustering brings extra overhead. For instance, CH changes and
advertisements may diminish the gain in energy consumption.

5.1.2. HEED

Hybrid Energy-Efficient Distributed clustering (HEED) [15], introduced by Younis and Fahmy, is a
multi-hop WSN clustering algorithm which brings an energy-efficient clustering routing with explicit
consideration of energy. Different from LEACH in the manner of CH election, HEED does not select
nodes as CHs randomly. The manner of cluster construction is performed based on the hybrid
combination of two parameters. One parameter depends on the node’s residual energy, and the other
parameter is the intra-cluster communication cost. In HEED, elected CHs have relatively high average
residual energy compared to MNs. Additionally, one of the main goals of HEED is to get an even-
distributed CHs throughout the networks. Moreover, despite the phenomena that two nodes, within
each other’s communication range, become CHs together, but the probability of this phenomena is
very small in HEED.
In HEED, CHs are periodically elected based on two important parameters: residual energy and
intra-cluster communication cost of the candidate nodes. Initially, in HEED, a percentage of CHs
among all nodes, Cprob, is set to assume that an optimal percentage cannot be computed a priori.
The probability that a node becomes a CH is:
Eresidual
CH prob  C prob (2)
Emax
where Eresidualis the estimated current energy of the node, and Emax is a reference maximum energy,
which is typically identical for all nodes in the network. The value of CHprob, however, is not allowed
to fall below a certain threshold that is selected to be inversely proportional to Emax. Afterwards, each
node goes through several iterations until it finds the CH. If it hears from no CH, the node elects itself
to be a CH and sends an announcement message to its neighbors. Each node doubles its CHprob value
Sensors 2012, 12 11127

and goes to the next iteration until its CHprob reaches 1. Therefore, there are two types of status that a
sensor node could announce to its neighbors: tentative status and final status. If its CHprob is less than 1,
the node becomes a tentative CH and can change its status to a regular node at a later iteration if it
finds a lower cost CH. If it’s CHprob has reached 1, the node permanently becomes a CH. In HEED,
every node elects the least communication cost CH in order to join it. On the other hand, CHs send the
aggregated data to the BS in a multi-hop fashion rather than single-hop fashion of LEACH.
The advantages of the HEED protocol are as follows: (1) It is a fully distributed clustering method
that benefits from the use of the two important parameters for CH election; (2) Low power levels of
clusters promote an increase in spatial reuse while high power levels of clusters are required for
inter-cluster communication. This provides uniform CH distribution across the network and load
balancing; (3) Communications in a multi-hop fashion between CHs and the BS promote more energy
conservation and scalability in contrast with the single-hop fashion, i.e., long-range communications
directly from CHs to the sink, in the LEACH protocol [64].
However, there are some limitations with HEED as follows: (1) The use of tentative CHs that do
not become final CHs leave some uncovered nodes. As per HEED implementation, these nodes are
forced to become a CH and these forced CHs may be in range of other CHs or may not have any
member associated with them. As a result, more CHs are generated than the expected number and this
also accounts for unbalanced energy consumption in the network [65]; (2) Similar to LEACH, the
performing of clustering in each round imposes significant overhead in the network. This overhead
causes noticeable energy dissipation which results in decreasing the network lifetime; (3) HEED
suffers from a consequent overhead since it needs several iterations to form clusters. At each iteration,
a lot of packets are broadcast. (4) Some CHs, especially near the sink, may die earlier because these
CHs have more work load, and the hot spot will come into being in the network [66,67].

5.1.3. DWEHC

Distributed Weight-based Energy-efficient Hierarchical Clustering protocol (DWEHC), proposed

by Ding et al. [16], is a distributed clustering algorithm similar to HEED. The main objective of
DWEHC is to improve HEED by building balanced cluster sizes and optimize the intra-cluster
topology using location awareness of the nodes. Both DWEHC and HEED share some similarities
including no assumptions about network size and density, and considering residual energy in the
process of CH election. Every node implements DWEHC individually and the algorithm ends after
several iterations that are implemented in a distributed manner.
Different from LEACH and HEED, DWEHC creates a multi-level structure for intra-cluster
communication and limits a parent node’s number of children. Moreover, the only locally calculated
parameter weight is defined for CH election in DWEHC. After locating the neighboring nodes in its
area, each node calculates its weight according to:

Eresidual( s) Rd
Wweight( s)   (3)
Einitial( s) u 6 R

where Eresidual(s) and Einitial(s) are respectively residual and initial energy at node s, R is the cluster
range that corresponds to how far from the CH to a node inside a cluster, and d is the distance between
Sensors 2012, 12 11128

node s and the neighboring node u. In a neighborhood, according to Equation (3), the node with largest
weight would be elected a CH and the other nodes become members. At this stage, MNs are
considered as 1-level nodes and communicate directly with the CH. A MN can progressively adjust
such membership in order to reach a CH using the least amount of energy. Given the node’s
knowledge of the distance to its neighbors, it can assess whether it is better to stay a 1-level member or
become a h-level one where h is the number of hops from the CH to itself. If a MN can save energy
while reaching its CH with more than one hop, it will become a h-level member. The process continues
until all nodes achieve the most energy-efficient intra-cluster topology. Energy consumption for
communicate in a cluster can be computed according to node’s knowledge of the distance to its
neighbors. To limit the number of levels, every cluster is assigned a cluster range R within which
MNs should lay. The structure of multi-level cluster in DWEHC is illustrated in Figure 3.
After running DWEHC, a node either becomes a CH or becomes a child in a cluster, and a node is
covered by only one CH.

Figure 3. The Structure of Multi-level Cluster in DWEHC.

MN

R
CH

Intra-cluster communication is performed by TDMA. Each parent node polls its direct children and
forwards the data to its parent node until the data reaches the CH. The parent node may aggregates
several data packets from its children together with its own data into one packet. For inter-cluster
communication, the CHs poll their first-level children, including their own data, and transmit to the BS.
The following is the advantages of DWEHC: (1) Like HEED, it is a fully distributed clustering
method that is based on a function of the sensor’s energy reserve and the proximity to the neighbors
for CH election; (2) Considering energy reserves in CH election, DWEHC generates more well-
balanced CHs distribution and achieves significantly lower energy consumption in intra-cluster and
inter-cluster routing than HEED; (3) The clustering process of DWEHC terminates in a few iterations,
and does not depend on network topology or size.
Some disadvantages of DWEHC are summarized as follows: (1) Similar to LEACH, single-hop
inter-communication, directly from CHs to the BS, is performed in DWEHC. Thus DWEHC may
result in significant amount of energy consumption, and is not applicable to large-region networks;
(2) In the process of cluster formation, the iterative nature in both DWEHC and HEED produces a
relatively high control message overhead compared to other protocols.
Sensors 2012, 12 11129

5.1.4. PANEL

Position-based Aggregator Node Election protocol (PANEL) [17,18], presented by Buttyan and
Schaffer, is a position-based clustering routing protocol for WSNs. With respect to other CH election
protocols, PANEL supports asynchronous sensor network applications where the sensor node readings
are fetched by the BSs. The main goal of PANEL is to elect aggregators, i.e., CHs, for reliable and
persistent data storage applications.
PANEL assumes that the nodes are deployed in a bounded area, which is partitioned into
geographical clusters. The clustering is determined before the deployment of the network, and each
node is pre-loaded with the geographical information of the cluster to which it belongs. PANEL
introduces a notion of reference point. At the beginning of each epoch, a reference point Rj is computed
in each cluster j by the nodes in a distributed manner in terms of the epoch number, as follows:
  
Rj  Qj Q (4)

where Q j is the position of the lower-left corner of cluster j. Furthermore, the current epoch number e
is known by every node and the computation consists in calling a pseudo-random function H(e) that

maps e to a relative position Q inside the cluster, i.e.,:

H (e)  Q (5)

where Q  (d , d  d )  (d , d  d ) , d is the size of the cluster, and δ < 1 is a parameter which
expresses the magnitude of this re-sizing operation in percent of the original cluster size d. Once the
reference point is computed, the node that is the closest to the reference point will be elected the CH
for the given epoch. The reference points of the clusters will be re-computed and the CH election
procedure will be re-executed in next epochs. This CH election procedure ensures load balancing in
PANEL because each node of the cluster can become CH with almost the same probability. The
illustration of the geographical clustering in PANEL is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Illustration of the Geographical Clustering in PANEL.

Sensor node Reference point Elected aggregator

Sensors 2012, 12 11130

The CH election procedure needs intra-cluster communications. PANEL takes advantage of these
communications to establish routing tables for intra-cluster routing. Especially, at the end of the CH
election procedure, the nodes also are conscious of the next hop towards the CH elected for the current
epoch. Moreover, a position-based routing protocol is introduced in PANEL. The intra-cluster routing
is used to route a message to the aggregator of a given cluster if that messages is already inside the
cluster. The intra-cluster routing of PANEL takes advantage of the fact that the nodes within the
cluster communicate during the aggregator election procedure.
The following are the main merits of PANEL: (1) This protocol is an energy-efficient protocol that
ensures load balancing because each node is elected aggregator, i.e., CH, nearly equally frequently.
Besides, data aggregation is performed and communication load is reduced, accordingly PANEL can
prolong the network lifetime; (2) The outstanding feature of PANEL that makes it different from other
data-aggregation based clustering protocols is that besides synchronous scenes, it also supports
asynchronous applications.
The main limitations of PANEL are discussed as follows: (1) The assumption that the clusters are
determined before deployment and thus cannot be applied to WSN dynamics; (2) Geographical
position information of the nodes is used to determine which node should be the aggregators. This is a
restriction in WSNs, because the geographical position is not always available without special
condition, such as GPS-like hardware and software; (3) A crucial assumption of PANEL, described by
the authors of PANEL, is that the nodes within a cluster form a connected sub-network. If this
assumption is not satisfied, and the sub-network within a cluster is partitioned, then some nodes will
not hear the announcement of the node closest to the reference point, and they will elect another node
as aggregator.

5.1.5. TL-LEACH

Two-Level Hierarchy LEACH (TL-LEACH), introduced by Loscrìet al. [19], is an extension to the
algorithm of LEACH. TL-LEACH uses the following two techniques to achieve energy and latency
efficiency: randomized, adaptive, self-configuring cluster formation and localized control for data
transfers. In TL-LEACH, a CH collects data from MNs as original LEACH, but instead of transmitting
data to the BS directly, it uses a part of CHs that lies between the CH and the BS as a relay station.
TL-LEACH introduced two-level hierarchy as shown in Figure 5: top CHs called primary cluster
heads (CHi), second level represented from secondary cluster heads (CHij) and ONs. The algorithm is
composed from four basic phases: advertisement phase, cluster setup phase, schedule creation and data
transmission. In the first phase, each node decides whether it become a primary CH, secondary CH or
ON in each round which is the same as that of LEACH. If a node is elected a primary CH, it must
advertise other nodes. The mechanism used in this phase is carrier sense multiple access (CSMA).
Thereafter, secondary CH nodes send the advertisement to the ONs. In this phase, each secondary CH
decides to which primary CH it belongs and sends an advertisement message to its primary CH. In the
same way, each ON must decide which secondary CH it belongs to and informs it through an opposite
message. In the third phase, each primary CH creates a TDMA schedule assigning each node in its
group a slot to transmit. Each primary CH chooses a CDMA code and informs all the nodes at second
level in its group to use this code. In the same way, each secondary CH can transmit this information to
Sensors 2012, 12 11131

ONs in its group using both the code and the schedule from the primary CH. In the last phase, clusters
are created and each node can transmit in respect to the TDMA schedule decided by its primary CH.

Figure 5. The Two-level Hierarchy in TL-LEACH.

BS

CH1 CH2 CH3

CH11 CH21
CH12 CH22 CH31

The advantages of TL-LEACH are as follows: (1) TL-LEACH uses random rotation of local cluster
BSs, i.e., primary CHs and secondary CHs, which can bring about better energy load distribution
across the network; (2) TL-LEACH uses localized coordination, which is conductive to scalability and
robustness in the network; (3) Compared with LEACH, the scheme of two-levels clustering leads to
less average transmission distance, and less nodes are required to transmit far distances to the BS via
TL-LEACH. This effectively reduces the total energy consumption.
However, there exist a few disadvantages of TL-LEACH as follows: (1) Despite that the average
transmission distance is decreased in comparison with LEACH, the two-hop inter-cluster routing of
TL-LEACH is still not applicable to large-range networks, because it uses only two hops for data
transmission from sources to the BS, and long-distance communications can breed much energy
consumption; (2) CH election without energy considerations assumes an ideal homogeneous network
and can not ensure real load-balancing in case of nodes with different amount of initial energy.

5.1.6. UCS

Unequal Clustering Size (UCS) model [20] was proposed by Soro and Heinzelman for network
organization in order to balance energy consumption of CHs, thus increasing the network lifetime. UCS
is the first unequal clustering model for WSN organization. It is assumed that the positions of the CHs
are determined a priori, with all CHs arranged symmetrically in concentric circles around the BS which
is located in the center of the network, thus it’s easy to control the actual sizes of different clusters.
In UCS, the sensing field is assumed to be circular and is divided into two concentric circles, called
layers. In order to simplify the theoretical analysis, the authors approximate the sensing field as pie
shaped field with a multiple-layer network, shown in Figure 6. It is assumed that all clusters in one
layer have the same size and shape, but the sizes and shapes of clusters in the two layers are different.
The position of a CH within the cluster boundaries determines the overall energy consumption of
nodes that belong to the cluster. To keep the total energy dissipation within the cluster as small as
possible, every CH should be positioned at the center of the cluster. CHs are deterministically
deployed in the network and are assumed to be super nodes which are much more expensive than MNs.
Sensors 2012, 12 11132

By varying the radius of the first layer around the BS, while assuming a constant number of clusters in
every layer, the area covered by clusters in each layer can be changed, and accordingly the number of
nodes contained in a particular cluster can be changed. Data transmission is done through multiple
hops, where every CH chooses to forward its data to the closest CH in the direction of the BS.

Figure 6. Pie Shaped Clusters Arranged in Two Layers in UCS.

BS

CH1
CH2
Layer1

Layer2

The advantages of UCS are discussed as follows: (1) By changing the number of nodes in every
cluster with respect to the expected communication load, UCS can maintain more uniform energy
consumption among the CHs. Therefore, the total energy dissipated for every CH is similar and UCS
can prolong network lifetime compared with the model of Equal Clustering Size (ECS); (2) Using
the two-layered network model and two-hop inter-cluster communication method, UCS results in a
shorter average transmission distance compared with LEACH, thus effectively reduces the total
energy consumption.
However, there exist a few limitations in UCS as follows: (1) UCS is constrained by the assumption
that the network is heterogeneous, and CHs are performed by super nodes all the time and are
deployed at pre-determined locations. That is to say, it lacks universality [68]; (2) CHs are required to
locate in the center of the cluster, thus a key factor, residual energy of nodes, is not considered in UCS;
(3) Similar to TL-LEACH, despite that the average transmission distance is decreased in comparison
with LEACH, the two-hop inter-cluster routing of UCS is still not applicable to large-range networks,
because it uses only two hops for data transmission from sources to the BS, and long-distance
communications need much energy consumption.

5.1.7. EECS

Energy Efficient Clustering Scheme (EECS), proposed by Ye et al. [21,22], is a clustering

algorithm which better suits the periodical data gathering applications. EECS is a LEACH-like scheme,
where the network is partitioned into several clusters and single-hop communication between the CH
and the BS is performed. In EECS, CH candidates compete for the ability to elevate to CH for a given
round. This competition involves candidates broadcasting their residual energy to neighboring
candidates. If a given node does not find a node with more residual energy, it becomes a CH. Different
Sensors 2012, 12 11133

from LEACH for cluster formation, EECS extends LEACH by dynamic sizing of clusters based on
cluster distance from the BS.
In EECS, a node chooses the CH by considering not only saving its own energy but also balancing
the workload of CHs, i.e., two distance factors: d(Pj, CHi) and d(CHi, BS). A weighted function cost(j,i)
is introduced in EECS for the ordinary node Pj to make a decision, which is:
cost ( j, i)  ((1  w( Pj ))w  f ( Pj , CH i )  w( Pj )  g (CH i ) (6)
and node Pj, chooses cluster head CHi with the minimal {cost}to join. In Equation (6), f and g are two
normalized functions for the distance d(Pj, CHi) and d(CHi, BS), respectively:
d ( Pj , CH i )
f ( Pj , CH i )  (7)
d f _ max

d (CH i , BS )  d g _ min
g (CH i )  (8)
d g _ max  d g _ min
where df_max = exp(max{d(Pj, CHi)}), dg_max = max{d(CHi, BS)} and dg_min = min{d(CHi, BS)}. w is the
function of Pj as follows:

d ( Pj , BS )
w( Pj )  c  (1  c) (9)
(d g _ max  d g _ min )

Function f in cost guarantees that nodes choose the closest CH in order to minimize the intra-cluster
communication cost, while function g makes the nodes join the CH with small d(CHi, BS)} to alleviate
the workload of the CHs farther from the BS. Function w is the weighted factor for the tradeoff
between f and g. Furthermore, the optimal value of weighted factor c in the function w depends on the
specific network scale.
The advantages of EECS are summarized as follows: (1) Based on energy and distance, EECS
constructs balancing point between intra-cluster energy consumption and inter-cluster communication
load; (2) Clustering is performed by dynamic sizing based on cluster distance from the BS. This
addresses the problem that clusters with a larger distance to the BS require more energy for
transmission than those with a shorter distance, and bring about low message overheads and uniform
distribution of CHs compared to LEACH.
However, there exist a few advantages in EECS as follows: (1) Account of single-hop
communications in EECS, long-range transmissions directly from CHs to the BS can lead to much
energy consumption. Hence it is not suitable for large-range networks; (2) EECS requires more global
knowledge about the distances between the CHs and the BS, and the task of global data aggregation
adds overheads to all sensor nodes; (3) EECS produces much more control overhead complexity
because all nodes must compete for becoming CHs.

5.1.8. EEUC

Energy-Efficient Uneven Clustering (EEUC) algorithm, proposed by Li et al. [23], is a clustering

and distributed competitive algorithm, where CHs are elected by localized competition, which is unlike
LEACH. Every node has a pre-assigned competitive range, which is smaller as it gets close to the BS.
Sensors 2012, 12 11134

This makes EEUC an unequal clustering approach for the purpose of balancing energy consumption
among CHs and solving the hot spots problem. During the process of CH election in EEUC, each node
generates a random number, and only the node whose number is greater than a threshold will be
activated for CH election by broadcasting compete message within a competition radius which is
determined by its distance to the BS. The competition radius of node si is given by:
 d max  d ( si , BS )  0
si .Rcomp  1  c Rcomp
d max  d min 
(10)

where R0comp is the maximum competition radius which is predefined, dmax and dmin denote the maximum
and minimum distance between sensor nodes and the BS, d(si, BS) is the distance between node si and
the BS, c is a constant coefficient between 0 and 1. According to Equation (10), the node’s competition
range decreases as its distance to the BS decreasing. Accordingly clusters closer to the BS have smaller
cluster sizes, thus they will consume lower energy during the intra-cluster data processing, and can
preserve more energy for the inter-cluster relay traffic. If a sensor node decides to participate to the
competition, which is based on the residual energy of each tentative CH, it becomes a tentative CH.
Then, tentative CHs in local regions compete in order to become a real CH.
In EEUC, multi-hop routing is used for inter-cluster communication. The CHs choose relay nodes
for data transmission according to the nodes’ residual energy and distance to the BS. In other words, a
CH would choose the one with more residual energy as its relay node from the two whose
communication cost are the least among all of its neighbor CHs.
According to above discussion, the disadvantages of EEUC are as follows: (1) To address the hot
spots problem, EEUC introduces an unequal clustering mechanism to balance the energy consumption
among CHs. Accordingly, the unequal clustering mechanism in EEUC improves the network lifetime
over LEACH and HEED; (2) Based on communication cost, this protocol can save more energy via
inter-cluster multi-hop routing mechanism in steady state phase, because a CH would choose its relay
node from the two whose communication cost are the least among all of its neighbor CHs.
However, there are several drawbacks in EEUC as follows: (1) Performing of clustering in each
round imposes significant overhead, because each node must broadcast and receive a large amount of
competition message for CH election, even though most of them cannot win and most of the elected
nodes are not suitable to be as CHs; (2) The extra global data aggregation can result in much overhead
for all nodes and deteriorate the network performance; (3) The routing scheme can result in new hot
spots, in that only one of the two nodes whose communication costs are the least among the neighbor
CHs can be relay nodes, even though both of them have little residual energy.

5.1.9. ACE

Algorithm for Cluster Establishment (ACE) [24], presented by Chan and Perrig, employs an
emergent algorithm, which is any computation that achieves formally or stochastically predictable
global effects, by communicating directly with only a bounded number of immediate neighbors and
without the use of central control or global visibility. One of the main distinguishing characteristics of
emergent protocols over other localized protocols is the existence of feedback during protocol
operation.
Sensors 2012, 12 11135

The main idea of ACE is to allow a node to assess its potential as a CH before becoming one and
retire if it is not the best CH at the moment. The algorithm works in iterations that do not have to be
synchronized at the individual nodes. ACE has two logical parts: the spawning of new clusters and the
migration of existing clusters. When a node decides to become a CH, it spawns of new cluster by
broadcasting an invitation message to recruit its neighbors. Upon getting the invitation, a neighboring
node joins the new cluster and becomes a follower of the new cluster. At any moment, a node can be
a follower of multiple clusters while the protocol is running. However, the node can be a loyal
follower, i.e., a member which belongs to only one cluster. Migration is a process in which the best
candidate for being CH is elected again. Each CH will periodically check the ability of its followers to
determine which is the best candidate for the new leader of the cluster. The CH will retire if one of
these followers has more followers than it does. The node, considered as the best candidate for CH,
would have the largest number of followers while minimizing the amount of overlap with existing
clusters. Once the best candidate is determined by the current CH, it will assign the best candidate as the
new CH and abdicate its position as the old CH. Thus, the position of the cluster will appear to migrate in
the direction of the new CH. Accordingly, some of the former followers of the old CH do not belong to
the new cluster, while some new nodes near the new CH become new followers of the new cluster.
The characteristics and advantages of ACE are summarized as follows: (1) ACE is an emergent
algorithm that uses feedback to induce the formation of a highly efficient cover of uniform clusters
over the network; (2) Minimizing the number of CHs would not only generate efficient cover of the
whole network but also minimizes the cluster overlaps. This also improves the efficiency of the
algorithms that executes at the level of the CHs; (3) ACE is very robust because it can easily repair
structure damage caused by node failure and can also integrate new nodes in the network.
Nevertheless, there are several limitations in ACE as follows: (1) The important factor, energy, is
not considered during the process of CH election. That is to say, those nodes with low residual energy
may be elected CHs and work until death; (2) It is hard to decide the number of iterations for cluster
formation while satisfying the communication cost requirements and energy consumptions; (3) It is
obvious that migratory mechanism needs a large amount of information exchange among sensor nodes,
thus this protocol adds additional overheads.

5.1.10. BCDCP

Base-Station Controlled Dynamic Clustering Protocol (BCDCP), introduced by Muruganathan et al. [25],
is a centralized clustering routing protocol with the BS being capable of complex computation.
The main idea of BCDCP is the cluster formation where each CH serves an almost equal number of
MNs to balance CH overload and uniform CH placement throughout the network.
At the beginning of cluster setup, the BS receives information on the residual energy from all the
nodes in the network. Based on this information, the BS first computes the average energy level of all
the nodes in the network, and then chooses a set of nodes whose energy levels are above the average
value. Only the nodes from the chosen set, i.e., those with sufficient energy, can be elected CHs for the
current round, while those with low energy can prolong their lifetime by performing the task of ONs.
Based on the chosen set, the BS computes the number of clusters and performs the task of clustering,
which is accomplished in terms of an iterative cluster splitting algorithm. This algorithm first splits the
Sensors 2012, 12 11136

network into two sub-clusters, and proceeds further by splitting the sub-clusters into smaller clusters.
This process will be repeated until the desired number of clusters is achieved. At each iteration of
cluster splitting, two nodes that have the maximum separation distance are chosen for CHs from the
chosen set where all the nodes are eligible to become CHs. Then, each of the remaining nodes in the
current cluster is grouped with one CH or the other, whichever is closest. After balancing the two
groups which have approximately the same number of nodes, the two sub-clusters are formed.
In BCDCP, a multi-hop routing scheme is adopted to transfer the sensed data to the BS. Once the
clusters and the CHs have been identified, the BS chooses the lowest-energy routing path and transfer
information to the nodes along with the details on cluster groupings and selected CHs. The routing
paths are selected by first connecting all the CHs by means of the Minimum Spanning Tree (MST)
approach [69], which minimizes the energy consumption for each CH, and then randomly choosing
one CH to forward the data to the BS. By randomizing the CH transmissions to the BS, the
transmission burden is distributed almost evenly among all CHs in BCDCP. Figure 7 is the topology of
the network in BCDCP.

Figure 7. The Topology of the Network in BCDCP.

BS

CH ON

BCDCP utilizes a high-energy BS to set up clusters and uses MST [69] to connect CHs and randomly
chooses a leader to send data to the BS. The advantages of BCDCP include the following [63]:
(1) Clusters and transmission paths are constructed by the BS, thus BCDCP resolves the problem of
CH distribution and ensures similar power dissipation of CHs; (2) TDMA is employed to schedule the
time slots of cluster members; this allows sensor nodes to open communication interfaces only if data
transmissions are required, which means energy can be saved at the same time.
However, there exist a few disadvantages in BCDCP as follows: (1) BCDCP is a centralized
algorithm which brings worse scalability and robust to large networks than distributed algorithms;
(2) Each node needs to transmit information regarding its location and energy level to the BS during
the process of cluster formation. Accordingly it increases the design complexity and the energy
consumption of the nodes to some extent; (3) Due to the single-hop routing scheme, it is not
appropriate for long-distance communications, which result in much energy consumption. Therefore,
BCDCP is not adaptive to applications in large-range networks; (4) BCDCP is not suitable for reactive
Sensors 2012, 12 11137

networks where the user is not interested in periodic data retrieval, while the nodes only need to
respond to events of certain significance in reactive networks.
5.2. Data-Transmission Based Clustering Routing Protocols

5.2.1. PEGASIS

Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems (PEGASIS), proposed by Lindsey et al. [26],
is an improvement of LEACH. The main idea of PEGASIS is for each node to only communicate with
their close neighbors and take turns being the leader for transmission to the sink. In PEGASIS,
the locations of nodes are random, and each sensor node has the ability of data detection, wireless
communication, data fusion and positioning. Energy load is distributed evenly among the sensor nodes
in the network.
In PEGASIS, the nodes are organized to form a chain, which can either be concentratedly assigned
by the sink and broadcast to all nodes or accomplished by the nodes themselves using a greedy
algorithm. If the chain is formed by the nodes themselves, they can first get the location data of all
nodes and locally compute the chain using the same greedy algorithm. During the process of chain
formation in PEGASIS, it is assumed that all nodes have global knowledge of the network and the
greedy algorithm is employed. The chain construction is commenced from the furthest node from the
sink and the closest neighbor to this node will be the next node on the chain. When a node on the chain
dies, the chain will be reconstructed in the same manner to bypass the dead node.
For gathering data from sensor nodes in each round, each node receives data from one neighbor,
fuses the data with its own, and transmits to the other neighbor on the chain. By moving from node to
node, the fused data eventually are sent to the sink by the leader at a random position on the chain. The
leader is important for nodes to die at random locations, in respect that the idea of nodes dying at
random places is to enhance the robustness of the network. Alternatively, in each round, a control
token passing approach initiated by the leader is used to start the data transmission from the ends of the
chain. The scheme of data transmission in PEGASIS is shown in Figure 8. In this figure, if node C2 is
the leader, it will pass the token along the chain to node C0 at first. Then, node C0 will pass its data
toward node C2. After node C2 receives data from node C1, it will pass the token to node C4, and
node C4 will pass its data towards node C2 with data fusion taking place along the chain.

Figure 8. The Token Passing Scheme in PEGASIS.

sink

C0 C1 C2 C3 C4

According to above discussion, the following is the advantages of PEGASIS: (1) This protocol is
able to outperform LEACH for different network sizes and topologies, because it reduces the overhead
of dynamic cluster formation in LEACH, and decreases the number of data transmission volume
through the chain of data aggregation; (2) The energy load is dispersed uniformly in the network.
Sensors 2012, 12 11138

To ensure that the fixed sensor node is not select as the leader and thus to prevent the subsequent early
death of this sensor node, all sensor nodes act as the leader in turn [70].
However, there are some disadvantages in PEGASIS: (1) It is the necessity of having a complete
view of the network topology at each node for chain construction and that all nodes must be able to
transmit directly to the sink. Thus, this scheme is unsuitable for those networks with a time varying
topology [71]; (2) It is assumed that each sensor node can be able to communicate with the sink
directly, but nodes usually use multi-hop communications with the sink in practical cases. Furthermore,
long-range communications directly from the node to the sink can breed too much energy consumption;
(3) The communication manner suffers from excessive delays caused by the single chain for distant
nodes and a high probability for any node to become a bottleneck; (4) It is a difficult task for all nodes
to maintain a complete database about the location of all other nodes in the network, furthermore the
network is not very scalable because all nodes must have global knowledge of the network and employ
the greedy algorithm.

5.2.2. TEEN

Threshold sensitive Energy Efficient sensor Network protocol (TEEN) [27], proposed by
Anjeshwar and Agrawal, is a hierarchical protocol whose main goal is to cope with sudden changes in
the sensed attributes such as temperature. The protocol combines the hierarchical technique in line
with a data-centric approach. The nodes sense their environment continuously, but the energy
consumption in this algorithm can potentially be much less than that in the proactive network, because
data transmission is done less frequently.
In TEEN, a 2-tier clustering topology is built as illustrated in Figure 9 and two thresholds, hard
threshold and soft threshold, are defined. The former threshold is a threshold value for the sensed
attribute. It is the absolute value of the attribute beyond which, the node sensing this value must switch
on its transmitter and report to its CH. The latter threshold is a small change in the value of the sensed
attribute which triggers the node to switch on its transmitter and transmit.

Figure 9. Illumination of the 2-tier Clustering Topology in TEEN.

BS

ON
Cluster First level CH
Second level CH
Sensors 2012, 12 11139

In TEEN, a CH sends its members a hard threshold and a soft threshold. Thus the hard threshold
tries to reduce data communications by allowing the nodes to transmit only when the sensed attribute
is in the range of interest. The soft threshold further reduces data communications might have
otherwise occurred when there is little or no change in the sensed attribute. At the expense of increased
energy consumption, a smaller value of the soft threshold generates more accurate information of the
network, thus users can control the trade-off between energy efficiency and data accuracy by the
parameters adjustment. Moreover, the soft threshold can be varied and the users can change the fresh
parameters as required at every cluster change time.
According to above discussion, TEEN has the following advantages: (1) Based on the two
thresholds, data transmission can be controlled commendably, i.e., only the sensitive data we demand
can be transmitted, so that it reduces the energy transmission consumption and improves the
effectiveness and usefulness of the receiving data; (2) TEEN is complement for reacting to large
changes in the sensed attributes, which is suitable for reactive scenes and time critical applications.
However, there exist a few drawbacks in TEEN as follows: (1) It is not suitable for periodic reports
applications since the user may not get any data at all if the values of the attributes may not reach the
threshold [72]; (2) There exist wasted time-slots and a possibility that the BS may not be able to
distinguish dead nodes from alive ones, because only when the data arrive at the hard threshold and
has a variant higher than the soft threshold did the sensors report the data to the BS; (3) If CHs are not
in the communication range of each other the data may be lost, because information propagation is
accomplished only by CHs [73].

5.2.3. APTEEN

The Adaptive Threshold sensitive Energy Efficient sensor Network protocol (APTEEN) [28],
introduced by Manjeshwar and Agrawal, is an extension to TEEN and aims at both transmitting
periodic data and reacting to time critical events. APTEEN, on the other hand, is a hybrid protocol that
changes the periodicity or threshold values used in TEEN according to the requirement of users and
the type of the application. APTEEN is based on a query system which allows three types of queries:
historical, on-time, and persistent which can be used in a hybrid network. Moreover, QoS requirements
are introduced for the on-time queries and minimum delay is achieved by a TDMA schedule with a
special time slot assignment manner.
In APTEEN, CHs broadcast the following four parameters: (1) Attributes (A)—this is a set of
physical parameters which the user is interested in obtaining data about; (2) Thresholds—this
parameter consists of the hard threshold (HT) and soft threshold (ST). HT is a particular value of an
attribute beyond which a node can be triggered to transmit data. ST is a small change in the value of an
attribute which can trigger a node to transmit data again; (3) Schedule—this is a TDMA schedule,
assigning a slot to each node; (4) Count time (CT)—it is the maximum time period between two
successive reports sent by a node. It can be a multiple of the TDMA schedule length and it accounts
for the proactive component.
The distinctive feature of APTEEN is to switch between proactive and reactive modes to transmit
data. All nodes sense the environment continuously, but only those nodes which sense a data value at
or beyond the hard threshold permit transmitting. Once a node senses a value at or beyond the hard
Sensors 2012, 12 11140

threshold, it transmits data. If a node does not send data for a time period equal to the count time,
it must sense and transmit the data again. In APTEEN, each CH aggregates the data from the MNs
within its cluster and transmits the aggregated data to the BS. During the process of data aggregation,
it is assumed that the data received from the corresponding MNs are sufficiently correlated, thus it
reduces a large amount of redundancy of the data to be transmitted to the BS. Moreover, a modified
TDMA schedule is used to implement the hybrid network by assigning each node in the cluster a
transmission slot. Additionally, APTEEN offers a lot of flexibility by allowing the user to set the CT
interval and the threshold values for energy consumption can be controlled by changing the CT as well
as the threshold values.
The characters and advantages of APTEEN include: (1) APTEEN combines both proactive policies,
which is alike that of LEACH, and reactive policies, which is alike that of TEEN. Accordingly it is
suitable in both proactive and reactive applications; (2) It embodies a lot of flexibility by setting the
count-time interval, and the threshold values for the energy consumption can be adjusted by changing
the count time as well as the threshold values.
The main disadvantages of APTEEN are as follows: (1) There exist additional complexity required
to implement the threshold functions and the count time; (2) Actually, both TEEN and APTEEN share
the same drawbacks of additional overhead and complexity of cluster construction in multiple levels,
implementing threshold-based functions, and dealing with attribute-based naming of queries—APTEEN
more than TEEN [74].

5.2.4. TTDD

The Two-Tier Data Dissemination (TTDD) approach, presented by Luo et al. [29], is a low-power
protocol for efficient data delivery from multiple sources to multiple mobile sinks. It exploits a
geographic routing based on grid of cells as the routing method. Instead of passively waiting for
queries from sinks, sensor nodes can proactively establish a structure to set up forwarding information.
Ultimately, the sensing field is figured as a set of grid points.
In TTDD, a source divides the field into a grid of cells and each cell is square. A source, at one
crossing point of the grid, propagates data announcements to reach all the other crossings, called
dissemination points, on the grid as shown in Figure 10. A source calculates the locations of its four
neighboring dissemination points and sends a data announcement message to the four neighboring
dissemination points using simple greedy geographical forwarding, i.e., it forwards the message to the
neighbor node that has the smallest distance to the neighboring dissemination point. Similarly, the
neighbor node continues forwarding the data announcement message till the message stops at a node
that is closer to the dissemination point than all its neighbors. During this process, each intermediate
node stores the source information and this process continues until the message stops at the border of
the network. After this process, the grid structure is obtained.
Sensors 2012, 12 11141

Figure 10. The Grid-based Topology in TTDD.

Dissemination node
c

Source
Sink

The sink can flood a query within a local area to discover nearby dissemination nodes. Once the
query reaches a local dissemination node, it is forwarded on the grid to the upstream dissemination
node from which this intermediate node receives data announcements. The query is forwarded by the
upstream toward the source, until finally arrives at the source. During the above process, each
dissemination node stores the location of the downstream dissemination node, thus this information is
used to direct data back to the sink.
When a sink moves in the network, trajectory forwarding is employed to relay data to the mobile
sink from its immediate dissemination node. In trajectory forwarding, each sink is associated with two
sensor nodes: a primary agent and an immediate agent. A sink picks a neighboring sensor node as its
primary agent which receives data directly from the immediate dissemination node, and subsequently
relays data to the sink. Initially, the primary agent and the immediate agent are the same sensor node.
When a sink is about to move out of the range of its immediate agent, it selects another neighboring
node as its new immediate agent and sends the information of the new immediate agent to its primary
agent, thus future data are forwarded to the new immediate agent.
The character and advantage of TTDD can be concluded as follows: (1) It deals with the problems
caused by multiple mobile sinks and sink moving in large-scale WSNs; (2) Despite that it is effective
in high mobility scenarios, the overhead to build and maintain the overlay is significant, especially in
periodic reporting scenarios, which are more traffic intensive than event-based reporting. Therefore,
TTDD is better suited to event-detecting WSNs with sporadic rather than continuous traffic [75].
There are some disadvantages in TTDD as follows: (1) The routing of a forwarding path in TTDD
is not the shortest path, thus it may lead to large latency for the long path; (2) The grid structure
formation and query flooding cost large energy consumption; (3) TTDD requires that sensor nodes are
stationary and location-aware and assumes the availability of an accurate positioning system that may
not yet available in a real WSN. If mobile sensor nodes are allowed to move in the network, how
would TTDD perform is still an open question.
Sensors 2012, 12 11142

5.2.5. CCS

The Concentric Clustering Scheme (CCS) has been proposed in [30] by Jung et al. to reduce the
energy consumption loopholes in PEGASIS. The main idea of CCS is to consider the location of the
BS to enhance its performance and to prolong the lifetime of the network.
In CCS, the network is divided into a variety of concentric circular tracks which represent different
clusters and each circular track is assigned with a level. The track nearest to the BS is assigned with
level-1 and the level number increases with the increase of the distance to the BS. Thus, each node in
the network is assigned with its own level. Besides, chains are constructed within the track as that in
PEGASIS. One of the nodes on the chain at each level area is selected as a CH. A CH in level L is
selected with node number obtained by calculating i mod ML, where ML represents the number of
nodes that have the same level in i round. Data transmission in CCS is based on the process of
PEGASIS protocol. After CH selection, each CH transmits the data of its own location to both the
upper and lower level CH in one grade. In the process of the data transmission, all nodes in each level
transmit the data to the nearest node from themselves along the chain. The node receives the data and
fuses its own data and transmits these data to the next node. Therefore, the CH receives at most two
data messages. Subsequently, the CH in each level transmits the data to the lower CH. At last, level 1
CH transmits these data to the BS. The data transmission scheme in CCS is shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Illumination of the Data Transmission Scheme in CCS.

BS

30%
Level 1
30%
Level 2
30%
Level 3
30%

ON CH

Compared to PEGASIS, CCS embodies the advantaged as follows: (1) The distance over which the
data can be transmitted to the BS from the CH is reduced in CCS. Hence, a considerable amount of
energy is saved on account of the reduction of transmission distance in CCS [76]; (2) The network is
divided into a series of concentric clusters, and the reverse data flow from the BS is also reduced. Thus,
a considerable amount of energy is also conserved during data transmission.
However, there are some disadvantages to be considered as follows: (1) Node distribution in each
level is unbalanced, thus the levels with small number of nodes will deplete their energy first, in that
the probability of election to be a CH is high; (2) Residual energy is not considered for CH election,
which may lead to unbalanced energy consumption among all nodes; (3) Chain-based protocols, such
as PEGASIS and CCS, enable nodes to communicate with their closest neighbor by using low radio
Sensors 2012, 12 11143

power, but the long chain would cause large delay [77]; (4) The CH selection for next hop is based on
the location rather than the residual energy of nodes, thus energy of CH may dissipates quickly on the
path among CHs, and even energy hole will appear in the network.

5.2.6. HGMR

Hierarchical Geographic Multicast Routing (HGMR), proposed in [31] by Koutsonikolas et al., is a

location-based multicast protocol. This protocol seamlessly incorporates the key design concepts of the
Geographic Multicast Routing (GMR) [78] and Hierarchical Rendezvous Point Multicast (HRPM)
protocols [79], and optimizes them by providing forwarding energy efficiency as well as scalability to
large-scale WSNs.
HGMR starts with a hierarchical decomposition of a multicast group into subgroup of manageable
size by means of the key concept of mobile geographic hashing of HRPM. Within each subgroup,
HGMR adopts the local multicast scheme of GMR to forward data packets along multiple branches of
the multicast tree in one transmission. In HGMR, the multicast group is divided into subgroups using
the mobile geographic hashing idea: the deployment area is recursively partitioned into a number of d2
equal-sized square sub-domains called cells, where d is decomposition index depending on the
encoding overhead constraints, and each cell comprises a manageably-sized subgroup of members.
In each cell there is an Access Point (AP) responsible for all members in that cell, and all APs are
managed by a Rendezvous Point (RP).
In order to join a hierarchically decomposed multicast group, a node generates the hashed location
for the RP and sends a join message to that location. After receiving the value of decomposition
index d from the RP, the node invokes the hash function with d and its location, to achieve the hashed
location of the AP of the cell it belongs to. Consequently, the source builds an overlay tree, the
Source-to-AP tree, whose vertices are active APs in a topology graph, and another overlay tree, the
AP-to-Member tree is also built from the AP, considering each member as the vertex. When a source
needs to transmit data packets, it utilizes the unicast-based forwarding strategy of HRPM to propagate
data packets to each AP along the Source-to-AP overlay tree. In each cell, instead of constructing an
AP-to-Member overlay tree, HGMR uses the cost over progress optimizing broadcast algorithm of
GMR to select the next relay nodes at each hop. By adjusting the value for the decomposition index d,
the number of members an AP is responsible for does not increase too much. Hence, the use of GMR
within each cell instead of the unicast-based forwarding strategy of HRPM contributes to reduce the
number of transmissions. When routing to a hashed location (RP or AP), HGMR uses the face routing
of HRPM, while when routing from an AP to a set of group members within a cell, it uses the
multicast face routing of HRPM. The data delivery in HGMR is shown in Figure 12.
The main merits of HGMR can be summarized as follows: (1) The membership management of
HGMR is very simple and easy without additional cost due to the geographic hashing algorithm;
(2) According to the number of the nodes which play the different roles, the data transmission methods
for different hierarchies in HGMR make the routing energy-efficient in a way; (3) HGMR is free of the
scalability problem in that only manageable destinations exist in a cell.
However, there are a few drawbacks in HGMR as follows: (1) The simple network partition into a
set of cells may lead to sub-optimal routing paths from the root node to multicast group members;
Sensors 2012, 12 11144

(2) All transmissions are concentrated to APs. APs can be changed to another node by hash function,
but it is too limited in a cell, and may bring on unbalanced energy consumption around APs;
(3) HGMR makes the routing paths inefficient to some extent, in that data packets are forwarded from
the upper APs to the lower APs hierarchically, whether the lower APs are closer to the source than the
upper APs or not [80].

Figure 12. Illumination of data delivery in HGMR.

Source
Open RP
Reply
AP
Member
Non-member
AP-to-Member tree of GMR
Source-to-AP tree of HRPM

6. Comparison of Different Clustering Routing Protocols in WSNs

In this section, we compare the different clustering routing algorithms for WSNs. We summarize
the categories and differences of the clustering routing protocols in WSNs according to a variety of
clustering attributes as shown in Table 2. Furthermore, we compare the different clustering routing
approaches in WSNs based on a few important metrics in Table 3.

7. Summary and Conclusions

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have attracted significant attention over the past few years, and
can be employed in a wide spectrum of applications in both civilian and military scenarios. The design
of effective, robust, and scalable routing protocols for WSNs is a challenging task. On the other hand,
clustering routing algorithms, generally, can well match the constraints and the challenges of WSNs.
As a result, it is clearly seen so far that, significant efforts have been made in addressing the techniques
to design effective and efficient clustering routing protocols for WSNs in the past few years.
In this paper, we have presented a rather extensive survey on clustering routing protocols in WSNs.
We have also developed a novel taxonomy of clustering routing methods for WSNs based on rather
detailed clustering attributes. Finally, we have systematically analyzed a few classical WSN clustering
routing protocols in deep, and compared these different approaches based on our taxonomy and some
primary metrics.
Sensors 2012, 12 11145

Table 2. Classification of Different Clustering Routing Protocols in WSNs.

Clustering Routing Protocols LEACH HEED DWEHC PANEL TL-LEACH UCS EECS EEUC
Variability of
cluster count variable variable variable fixed variable variable variable variable

Uniformity of
cluster sizes even even even even even uneven uneven uneven
Cluster
characteristics Intra-cluster
routing single-hop single-hop multiple-hop single-hop single-hop single-hop single-hop single-hop

Inter-cluster single-hop
routing single-hop single-hop multiple-hop multiple-hop multiple-hop single-hop multiple-hop
multiple-hop

Existence cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based
Difference of
capabilities homogeneous homogeneous homogeneous homogeneous homogeneous heterogeneous homogeneous homogeneous
Cluster-head
characteristics
Mobility stationary stationary stationary stationary stationary stationary stationary stationary
relay relay relay relay relay relay relay relay
Role aggregation aggregation aggregation aggregation aggregation aggregation aggregation aggregation

Control manners distributed distributed distributed distributed distributed distributed distributed distributed

Execution nature probabilistic iterative iterative probabilistic probabilistic probabilistic probabilistic probabilistic

Convergence time constant constant constant constant constant constant constant constant
Parameters for CH
Clustering process election adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive

Proactivity proactive proactive proactive proactive proactive proactive proactive proactive

load balancing
load balancing load balancing load balancing
Objectives load balancing load balancing load balancing periodical data load balancing
reliability lifetime extension lifetime extension
communications
Entire proceeding
of the algorithm Algorithm stages cluster construction cluster construction cluster construction cluster construction cluster construction cluster construction cluster construction cluster construction
Sensors 2012, 12 11146

Table 2. Cont.
Clustering Routing Protocols ACE BCDCP PEGASIS TEEN APTEEN TTDD CCS HGMR
Variability of
variable variable variable fixed variable variable variable variable
cluster count
Uniformity of
even even even even even even uneven even
Cluster cluster sizes
characteristics Intra-cluster
single-hop single-hop multiple-hop simple-hop single-hop single-hop multiple-hop single-hop
routing
Inter-cluster single-hop
single-hop single-hop multiple-hop multiple-hop multiple-hop multiple-hop multiple-hop
routing multiple-hop
no-cluster-head
Existence cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based cluster-head based
based
Difference of
Cluster-head homogeneous homogeneous N/A homogeneous homogeneous heterogeneous homogeneous homogeneous
capabilities
characteristics
Mobility stationary stationary N/A stationary stationary stationary stationary stationary
relay relay relay relay relay relay relay
Role N/A
aggregation aggregation aggregation aggregation aggregation aggregation aggregation
Control manners distributed centralized distributed distributed distributed distributed distributed distributed
Execution nature iterative iterative probabilistic probabilistic probabilistic probabilistic probabilistic probabilistic
Convergence time constant constant constant constant constant constant constant constant
Parameters for
Clustering process adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive
CH election
proactive
Proactivity proactive proactive proactive reactive proactive proactive proactive
reactive
reactive scenes proactive scenes scenes of multiple
Objectives load balancing load balancing load balancing lifetime extension lifetime extension
lifetime extension reactive scenes mobile sinks
Entire proceeding
Algorithm stages cluster construction cluster construction data transmission data transmission data transmission data transmission data transmission data transmission
of the algorithm
Sensors 2012, 12 11147

Table 3. Comparison of Different Clustering Routing Protocols in WSNs.

Algorithm
Ptotocol Name Energy Efficiency Cluster Stability Scalability Delivery Delay Load Balancing
Complexity
LEACH very low moderate very low very small moderate low

HEED moderate high moderate moderate moderate moderate

DWEHC very high high moderate moderate very good moderate

PANEL moderate low low moderate good high

TL-LEACH low moderate moderate small bad low

UCS very low high low small bad moderate

EECS moderate high low small moderate very high

EEUC high high high moderate good high

ACE moderate very low moderate small moderate very high

BCDCP very low high very low small good very high

PEGASIS low low very low very large moderate high

TEEN very high high low small good high

APTEEN moderate very low low small moderate very high

TTDD very low very high low very large good low

CCS low low low large very bad moderate

HGMR low high very high moderate bad low

To conclude, we want to sketch some future directions for the field. Firstly, further research would
be needed to address QoS problem of clustering routing, which mainly exists in real-time applications,
such as battle-target tracking, emergent-event monitoring, and etc. Recently there is very little research
focuses on handling QoS requirements in the resource-constrained WSN environment. Moreover,
further studies are necessary to settle the problem of node mobility, including the sink and sensor
nodes. There are a lot of node-mobility applications, such as battle scenarios, thus how to handle the
overhead of node mobility and topology changes must be further taken into account. Finally, with the
increase of the network scale in WSNs, more redundant information is created and a certain degree of
redundancy may be desirable for increasing reliability of the network. Thus, a trade-off between
redundancy reduction and redundancy utilization is still an open question.
We hope that this will encourage protocol researchers and designers to take into account the various
characteristics of the clustering routing methods when designing an effective clustering routing protocol,
and that more work would be done in the future directions for the field. We believe that we will witness
a great diffusion of clustering routing solutions for more comprehensive applications for WSNs.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61001112)
and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2011ZM0030). We would
also like to thank the editor and the referees for their valuable comments.
Sensors 2012, 12 11148

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