ECDC: An energy and coverage-aware distributed clustering protocol for wireless sensor networks

Clustering for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is an effective scheme in utilizing sensor nodes energy and extending the network lifetime, while coverage preservation is one of the most essential issues to guarantee the quality of service (QoS). However, the coverage problem has not been well understood so far. For mission-critical applications of networks, it is crucial to consider coverage requirements when we select cluster heads and routing nodes for the clustering topology. In this paper, we propose the ECDC (Energy and Coverage-aware Distributed Clustering Protocol), an integrated protocol involving both energy and coverage, which is different from previous clustering protocols. For different practical applications, we design corresponding coverage importance metrics and introduce them into the clustering algorithm. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that our protocol is effective in improving network coverage performance, reducing nodes energy dissipation and extending the network lifetime. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.