A new clustering approach in wireless sensor networks using fuzzy system

In recent years, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have attracted many researchers due to their widely usage in a wide range of applications. One of the most important problems in these networks is energy consumption that has a direct effect on network lifetime. Clustering is one of the most important solutions in order to overcome the problem. Energy resource limitation is a fundamental problem in WSNs and clustering protocols provide suitable procedures in order to enhance network lifetime. However, they impose high energy consumption on cluster heads (CH), and therefore, in each round, the protocol should reform clusters and change CH in order to enhance network lifetime. Although these protocols are proper for clustering, do not guarantee suitable CH selection. In this paper, a novel energy-efficient method is proposed using fuzzy logic and three parameters including the amount of energy in CH, distance from CH to base station, and the number of connections in CH. In fact, we focus on the cluster formation process. The proposed model is compared to the well-known low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy protocol. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed protocol improves network lifetime.