Clustering the sensor nodes and choosing the way for routing the data are two key elements that would affect the performance of a wireless sensor network (WSN). In this paper, a novel clustering method is proposed and a simple two-hop routing model is adopted for optimizing the network layer of the WSN. New protocol is characterized by simplicity and efficiency (SE). During the clustering stage, no information needs to be shared among the nodes and the position information is not required. Through adjustment of two parameters in SE, the network on any scale (varies from the area and the number of nodes) could obtain decent performance. This work also puts forward a new standard for the evaluation of the network performance—the uniformity of the nodes' death—which is a complement to merely taking the system lifetime into consideration. The combination of these two aspects provides a more comprehensive guideline for designing the clustering or routing protocols in WSN.
Energy, Traffic Load, and Link Quality Aware Ad Hoc Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Network Based Smart Metering Infrastructure