ARCS: An Energy-Efficient Clustering Scheme for Sensor Network Monitoring Systems

To achieve efficiency in prolonging the lifetime of sensor networks many schemes have been proposed. Among these schemes, a clustering protocol is an efficient method that prolongs the lifetime of a network. However, in applying this method, some nodes consume energy unnecessarily because of an environment in which the collected data of the sensor nodes easily overlap. In this paper we propose a clustering method which reduces unnecessary data transmission among nodes by excluding the duplication of data. Our method alleviates the problem where nearby nodes collect the same data from adjacent areas by electing all nodes that form a cluster in consideration of the sensing coverage of the nodes. Also, it introduces relay nodes, also called repeaters, which help to hop the data transmission along to cluster head nodes in order to cope with energy-hole and link failure problems. This method prevents data loss caused by link failure problem and thus the data is collected reliably. According to the results of the performance analysis, our method reduces the energy consumption, increases the transmission efficiency, and prolongs network lifetime when compared to the existing clustering methods.