Extending the Lifespan of Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey of LEACH and Non-LEACH Routing Protocols

Originated envisaged for military functions, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have gain wide-ranging applicability including in home, business, agriculture, environment monitoring, health care and structural engineering. Despite the immeasurable benefits, Wireless Sensor Networks have inherent constraints arising mainly from its low battery powered sensor nodes. Many design efforts have focused on designing energy efficient means of monitory and transmitting required application specific events as long as required. Different energy-efficient schemes have been developed in past studies to varying successes. This paper reviews some relevant literature on existing routing protocols for wireless sensor network with much emphasis given to the Low Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocol, its variant protocols as well as its security-enabled versions.