Estimation of the Optimal Number of Cluster-heads in Sensor Network

Hyunsoo Kim1 , Seong W. Kim2 , SooBeom Lee3 , and Bongsoo Son4 Postdoctoral Researcher, Dept. of Mathematics, Sungkyunkwan Univ., Korea bayes1@hanmail.net 2 Assistant Professor, Div. of Applied Mathematics, Hanyang Univ., Korea seong@hanyang.ac.kr 3 Assistant Professor, Dept. of Transportation Engineering, Univ. of Seoul, Korea mendota@uos.ac.kr 4 Associate Professor, Dept. of Urban Planning and Engineering, Yonsei Univ., Korea sbs@yonsei.ac.kr
Abstract. A sensor network system consisting of a large number of small sensors with low-power can be an eective tool for collection and integration of data by each sensor in a variety of environments. The collected data by each sensor node is communicated through the network to a single base station that uses all collected data to determine properties of the data. Clustering sensors into groups, yields that sensors communicate information only to cluster heads and then the clusterheads communicate the aggregated information to the base station. We estimate the optimal number of cluster-heads among randomized sensors in a bounded region. We derive solutions for the values of parameters of our algorithm that minimize the total energy spent in the wireless sensor network when all sensors communicate data from the cluster-heads to the base station. Computer simulation shows that the energy consumption reduce as the optimal number of cluster-heads for the proposed method.
1

Introduction

Recent developments in wireless sensor network have motivated the growth of extremely small and low-cost sensors that possess sensing, signal processing and wireless communication capabilities. These sensors can be expended at a cost much lower than conventional wired sensor systems. Each sensor is capable of detecting conditions around areas of distributed sensors such as temperature, sound, or the presence of certain objects. Sensor network system has gained increasing importance due to their potential benets for some civil and military applications such as combat eld surveillance, security and disaster management. The smart dust project at university of California, Berkeley [6, 8, 12] and WINS

project at UCLA [9] are attempting to build such extremely small sensors that entitle autonomous sensing and communication in a cubic millimeter. These systems process data gathered from multiple sensors to monitor events in an area of interest. [2] have analyzed the capacity of wireless ad-hoc networks and derived the critical power at which a node in a wireless ad-hoc network should communicate to form a connected network with probability one (cf. [3]). A sensor in wireless sensor network can communicate directly only with other sensors that are within a radio range in a cluster. To enable communication between sensors not within each communication range, the sensors form a new cluster in distributed sensors. Sensors in these cluster detect events and then communicate the collected information to a cluster-head. The cost of transmitting a bit is lower than other routing protocol methods (minimum transmission energy routing protocol, direct communication protocol, and etc). Prolonged network lifetime, scalability, and load balancing are important requirements for many wireless sensor network applications. In the minimum energy routing protocol, sensors route data are destined ultimately for the base station through intermediate sensors. The problem of these protocol is only to consider the energy of the transmitter and neglect the energy consumption of the receivers in determining the route. As distances between nodes change, energy consumption can be reduced. The low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) includes the use of energy-conserving hardware. Moreover, a higher lifetime of sensor networks can be accomplished through optimized applications, operating systems, and communication protocols. We concentrate on the number of cluster-heads among all distributed sensors in an interested region as distances between sensors. [10] cited an expected distance between a cluster-head and sensors [1]. However we consider an expected distance between a cluster-head and sensors with a radio range of the clusterhead in a cluster and an expected distance between cluster-head and base station outside a wireless sensor network system. The network system can determine, a priori, the optimal number of cluster-heads to obtain in a region of distributed sensors. And we consider the distribution of the energy consumption of sensors. The essential operation in sensor clustering is to select a set of cluster-heads among the sensors in the network, and cluster the rest of the sensors with these cluster-heads. cluster-heads are responsible for coordination among the sensors within their clusters, and communication with each non-cluster-heads in clusters. The rest of the paper is presented as follows: In Section 2, we review the concept of LEACH. In Section 3, we propose the estimation of the number of cluster-heads with hyper-parameters in the Poisson process. In Section 4, we demonstrate eectiveness of the proposed optimal number k of cluster-heads by computer simulation. We provide a conclusion in Section 5.

2
2.1

Preliminaries
LEACH Protocol Architecture in Wireless Sensor Network

LEACH is a self organizing, adaptive clustering protocol that uses randomization to distribute the energy consumption evenly among the sensors in the network. In LEACH, the sensors organize themselves into local clusters, with one node acting as the local base station or cluster-head. If the cluster-heads were chosen a priori and xed throughout the system lifetime, as in conventional clustering algorithms, it is know that the selected cluster-heads would die quickly, ending the useful lifetime of all nodes belonging to those clusters. LEACH includes randomized rotation of the high energy cluster-head such that it rotates among all sensors in order to not spent the energy of a specic sensor. In addition, LEACH carry out local data fusion to compress the amount of data being sent from cluster-heads to the base station, moreover, reducing energy consumption and increasing sensor lifetime. Then LEACH prolong the lifetime of the network system. Clusters can be formed based on many properties such as communication range, number and type of sensors and geographical location. Figure 1 depicted data communication between sensors and the base station.

iz

Fig. 1. Communication with cluster-heads and base station

2.2

Clustering Algorithm

Cluster-heads in the sensor network advertises itself as a cluster-head to the sensors within its radio range. This advertisement is forwarded to all the sensors that are no more than radio range away from the cluster-head. Any sensor that receives such advertisements and is not itself a cluster-head joins the cluster

of the closest cluster-head. Any sensor that is neither a cluster-head nor has joined any cluster itself becomes a cluster-head; we call these cluster-heads the forced cluster-heads. Because we have limited the advertisement forwarding to radio range, if a sensor does not receive a cluster-head advertisement within time duration t (where t units is the time required for data to reach the clusterhead from any sensor radio range away) it can infer that it is not within radio range of any volunteer cluster-head and hence become a forced cluster-head. Moreover, since all the sensors within a cluster are at most radio range away from the cluster-head, the cluster-head can transmit the integrated information to the base station after every t units of time. This limit on radio range allows the cluster-heads to schedule their transmissions. The energy consumption used in the network for the information gathered by the sensors to reach the base station will depend on the number of cluster-heads and radio range r of our algorithm. Because of organizing the sensors in clusters to minimization of energy consumption, we need to nd the number of cluster-heads in our algorithm that would ensure minimization of energy consumption. The basic idea of the derivation of the optimal number of cluster-heads is to dene a function for the energy consumption used in the network to communicate information to the base station and then nd the number of cluster-heads minimizing it. We derive the number of cluster-heads in a given environment. We need computations of the optimal number of cluster-heads in a cluster. 2.3 Radio Energy Consumption Model

We assume a simple model for the radio hardware energy consumption where the transmitter consumes energy to run the radio electronics and the power amplier, and the receiver consumes energy to run the radio electronics. For the experiments described here, both the free space (d2 power loss) and the multipath fading (d4 power loss) channel models were used, depending on the distance between the transmitter and receiver. Power control can be used to invert this loss by appropriately setting the power amplier-if the distance is less than a threshold d0 , the free space (fs) model is used; otherwise, the multipath (mp) model is used. Thus to transmit an l-bit message a distance d, the radio expends ET (l, d) = ET elec (l) + ET amp (l, d) l Eelec + l f s d2 , d < d0 = lEelec + l mp d4 , d0 d and to receive this message, the radio expends: ER (l) = ERelec (l) = lEelec . The electronics energy, Eelec , depends on factors such as the digital coding, modulation, ltering, and spreading of the signal, whereas the amplier energy, 2 4 f s d or mp d , depends on the distance to the receiver and the acceptable biterror rate.

Estimation of the Optimal Number of Cluster-Heads

In LEACH, the cluster formation algorithm was created to ensure that the expected number of clusters per round is k, a system parameter. We can analytically determine the optimal value of k in LEACH using the computation and communication energy models. Let R denote a bounded region as a square of a side 2a. Let X(R) be the number of sensors contained in a region R. Assume X(R) is distributed uniformly in R. Let dtoBS be a random variable that denotes the length of the segment from a sensor in R. We assume that the base station is located near the sensor network system. Then the expected distance from base station to sensors is given by E[dtoBS ] =
R

x2 + (y y )2

1 dxdy. 4a2

(1)

The expected distance from the base station to sensors depend on the parameter y1 where y1 is the position of the base station outside a network system. Suppose that we have k clusters, there are on average N/k nodes per cluster (one cluster-head and (N/k) 1 non- cluster-head nodes). Each cluster-head consumes energy receiving signals from sensors, aggregating the signals, and transmitting the aggregate signal to the base station. Since the base station is far from sensors, presumably the energy consumption follows the multi-path model. Therefore, the consumed energy in the cluster-head per a bit of data during a single frame is ECH = l [( N N 1)Eelec + EDA + Eelec + k k
4 mp (dtoBS ) ],

where l is the number of bits in each data message and we have assumed perfect data aggregation and d toBS = E[dtoBS ]. Let X(RCH ) be the random variable denoting the number of sensors except a cluster-head in a cluster and RCH be a square with a side 2a/ k. Let dtoCH be the distance of segment connecting the sensor to the cluster-head in a cluster. Assume the cluster-head located in the center of a cluster. Then according to results in [1], the expected number of non-cluster-heads and the expected length from the sensors to the cluster-head in a cluster are given by E[X(RCH )|X(R) = N ] = and E[dtoCH |X(RCH ) = N/k] = = x2 + y 2 k(x, y)dxdy 0.7652a , k 1/2
RCH

N 1 k

(2)

(3)

respectively, where the density k(x, y) of sensors follows a uniform distribution in the occupied area by each cluster that is approximately 4a2 /k.

Each non-cluster-head node only needs to transmit its data to the clusterhead once during a frame. Presumably the distance to the cluster-head is small, so the energy consumption follows the Friss free-space model (d2 power loss). Thus, the energy used in each non-cluster-head mode is EnonCH = l [Eelec +
2 f s (dtoCH ) ],

where d toCH = E[dtoCH |X(RCH ) = N/k]. The energy dissipated in a cluster during the frame is ERCH = ECH + ( and the total energy for the system is ET otal = k ERCH = l[(2N k)Eelec +N EDA +k
4 mp (dtoBS ) +

N 1)EnonCH , k

(N k)

2 f s (dtoCH ) ]. (4)

Here, ET otal is minimized by a value of k that is a solution of the rst derivative of (4). The second derivative of (4) is positive and log concave for the only real root in the rst derivative of (4) and hence it minimizes the total energy consumption. We can nd the optimal number of clusters as following: kopt = 0.5855N f s a2 4 mp (dtoBS ) Eelec
1/2

(5)

A Simulation Study

We conduct a simulation with the algorithm described in Section 2 based on networks of sensors distributed uniformly. We used a N- sensors network where sensors were randomly distributed between {x|50 < x < 50} and {y|50 < y < 50} with the base station at location (x = 0, y = y ). The communication energy parameters are set as: Eelec = 50 nJ/bit, f s = 10 pJ/bit/m2 , mp = 0.0013 pJ/bit/m4 , and a = 50. The energy for data aggregation is set as EDA = 5 nJ/bit/signal. See [11] Let y be a location between 75m and 185 [5]. Then 57 < d toBS < 163 by (1). When N = 100, the optimal number of cluster-heads is between 1 and 11 by (5). When N = 200, the optimal number of cluster-heads is between 1 and 15 by (5). We show that the optimal number of cluster-heads de termines as d toBS :when N = 100, (kopt , dtoBS ) = (3, 105), (5, 81), (6, 74), (10, 57). Figure 2 and 3 are depicted the optimal number of cluster-heads minimizing the total energy consumption as the number of sensors and the distance between base station and sensor network system. Thus we know the number of cluster-heads depend on the distance between base station and sensor network system. In this network system the expected distance between a sensor and the base station is only dependable on a given bounded region. However, the expected distance between a sensor and a cluster-head in a cluster is dependable on the

4.2

x 10

N=100
1.6

x 10

N=200

1.4

Total Energy Consumption

Total energy Consumption

3.8

1.2

3.6

3.4

0.8

3.2

0.6

2.8 0

10

0.4

10

15

Number of Clusterheads

Number of Clusterheads

Fig. 2. Total energy consumption with d toBS = 81

4.2 x 10
8

N=10 8 7.5 7

x 10

N=200

3.8

Total Energy Consumption

Total energy Consumption

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

3.6

6.5 6 5.5 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 0

3.4

3.2

2.8

2.6

2.4

2.2

Number of Clusteheads

5 10 Number of Clusterheads

15

Fig. 3. Total energy consumption with d toBS = 74

number of sensors and the number of clusters in a bounded region. Thus the expected distance between a sensor and a cluster-head in a cluster decreases as increasing of number of sensors in a bounded region. Therefore, this can be attributed to the fact that the optimal number of cluster-heads determines as the dierent density of sensors in a bounded area and total energy consumption minimizes as number of cluster-heads in the sensor network.

Conclusion

The sensors which become the cluster-head in LEACH architecture spend relatively more energy than other sensors because they have receive information from all the sensors within their cluster, aggregate this information and then communicate to the base station. Hence, they run out of their energy faster than other sensors. We have found the optimal number of cluster-heads for the proposed algorithm that minimize the energy spent in the network, when sensors are uniformly distributed in a bounded region. We know the number of cluster-heads depend on the distance between base station and sensor network system. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by grant No. R01-2005-000-10141-0 from the Basic Research Program of the Korea Science & Engineering Foundation.

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