LEACH-HPR: An Energy Efficient Routing Algorithm for Heterogeneous WSN
LIHan
School of Science, Beijing Information Science and Technology University
Beijing, P.R.China
E-mail: annelh@126.com
Abstract: In wireless sensor network, there are many hurdles
takes place in providing quality of service routing to a desired
level. The majority of routing protocols in wireless sensor
networks concentrates on energy efficiency as a prime factor.
Developing an energy-efficient routing protocol
significant impact on the overall lifetime and stability of the
sensor network. In this paper, we have considered three types
of sensor nodes. Some fraction of the sensor
equipped with the additional energy resources than the other
nodes. We have assumed that all the sensor
uniformly distributed. In the Heterogeneous
proposed an energy efficient cluster head election protocol
(LEACH-HPR) and using the minimum spanning
algorithm to construct an inter-cluster routing. Simulation
results show out method is more efficient to reduce and
balance energy consumption and hence prolong the lifetime of
WSN.
Keywords: Heterogeneous, Energy Efficient, Wireless Sensor
Network, Routing, assistant-CH node
1. INTRODUCTION
A greater number of sensors allow for sensing over larger
geographical regions with greater accuracy. These sensors
can be networked in many applications that require
unattended operations, hence producing a wireless sensor
network (WSN). Many wireless sensor nodes are limited in
power, computation capabilities and memory. So they have
low cost and small form factors; therefore, they can be
deployed in large numbers with high redundancy. In this
way, the network can be made fault-tolerant. But, since
nodes are deployed in a redundant fashion, power is the
most important resource for wireless sensor networks.
Since there is no fixed or predefined infrastructure in
WSNs, the simplest routing method is flooding, which not
only wastes energy of nodes but also diminishes the
throughput of the whole network. These inherent properties
have to be taken into considerations while designing energy
efficient WSN routing protocols.
In homogeneous networks all the sensor nodes are
identical in terms of battery energy and hardware
complexity. With purely static clustering (cluster heads once
elected, serve for the entire lifetime of the network) in a
homogeneous network, it is evident that the cluster head
nodes will be over-loaded with the long range transmissions
to the remote base station(BS), and the extra processing
necessary for data aggregation and protocol co-ordination.
978-1-4244-6585-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE
As a result the cluster head nodes expire before other nodes.
However it is desirable to ensure that all the nodes run out
of their battery at about the same time, so that very little
residual energy is wasted when the system expires. One way
has a
to ensure this is to rotate the role of a cluster head randomly
and periodically over all the nodes as proposed in LEACH
nodes are [1]. However the downside of using a homogeneous
network and role rotation is that all the nodes should be
nodes are capable of acting as cluster heads, and therefore should
WSN, we possess the necessary hardware capabilities.
On the other hand, in a heterogeneous sensor network,
tree two or more different types of nodes with different battery
energy and functionality are used. The motivation being that
the more complex hardware and the extra battery energy can
be embedded in few cluster head nodes, thereby reducing
the hardware cost of the rest of the network. However fixing
the cluster head nodes means that role rotation is no longer
possible. When the sensor nodes use single hopping to reach
the cluster head, the nodes that are farthest from the cluster
heads always spend more energy than the nodes that are
closer to the cluster heads. On the other hand when nodes
use multi-hopping to reach the cluster head, the nodes that
are closest to the cluster head have the highest energy
burden due to relaying. Consequently there always exists a
non-uniform energy drainage pattern in the network.
Wei et.al[2] investigated the existing clustering
algorithms. Smaragdakis et.al[3] have studied the impact of
heterogeneity of sensor nodes, in terms of their energy and
proposed a heterogeneous-aware protocol to prolong the
time interval before the death of the first node, which is
crucial for many applications where the feedback from the
sensor network must be reliable. Gupta et.al[4] introduced a
cluster head election method using fuzzy logic to overcome
the defects of LEACH. They investigated that the network
lifetime can be prolonged by using fuzzy variables in
homogeneous network system.
In this paper, we have considered three types of sensor
nodes. Some fraction of the sensor nodes are equipped with
the additional energy resources than the other nodes. We
have assumed that all the sensor nodes are uniformly
distributed. In the Heterogeneous WSN, we proposed an
energy efficient cluster head election protocol and using the
minimum spanning tree algorithm to construct an inter­
cluster routing.
507
 II. NETWORK MODULE
Consider the heterogeneous cluster-based wireless sensor
network with hundreds sensor nodes dispersed in a field.
Base station, is located in the centre of the field remotely.
Each cluster has one cluster head which acts as a local
control centre to coordinate the data transmissions. We have
assumed there are n nodes uniformly distributed in this field.
The nodes of the WSN can be represented by a dataset S,
S= {S j , S2, . . . , Sn}, where n is the amount of nodes in dataset
S.
For a first order radio module, the total energy for a
transmitter to send a L-bit message over a distance d, energy
expanded by the radio is given by:
d)--
{ L * Eelec + L* Gis *d2 if d � do
(1)
ETx (L,
L * Eelec + L* cmp * d4 lif d -
Where Eelec is the energy dissipated per bit to run the
> d
0 and BS, and also the minimum spanning tree algorithm is
transmitter or the receiver circuit. ct' and Gmp depend on the
transmitter amplifier model, and d is the distance between
the sender and the receiver. By equating the two expressions
at d=do. To receive an L-bit message the radio expends
ERx=L*Eelec.
III. ALGORITHMS
WSN will enable reliable monitoring of remote areas.
These networks are essentially data-gathering networks
where the data are highly correlated and the end-user
requires a high-level description of the environment the
nodes are sensing. Because the correlation is strongest
among data signals from nodes located close to each other,
we chose to use a clustering infrastructure which allows all
data from nodes within the cluster to be processed locally,
reducing the data set that needs to be transmitted to the end­
user.
In our algorithm, the heterogeneous WSN have three
types of nodes with different energy (type-A, type-B and
type-C node). The nodes organize themselves into local
clusters, with one node acting as the Cluster Head (CH). All
non-cluster-head nodes must transmit their data to the
cluster head, while the cluster head node must receive data
from all the cluster members, perform signal processing
functions on the data and transmit data to the remote base
station. Therefore, being a cluster head node is much more
energy-intensive than being a non-cluster-head node.
In cluster set-up phase, we give each node a timer
according to its remainder energy. The rule is, the more
remainder energy, the less time of its timer. Thus, node with
more remainder energy has less time than node with less
remainder energy. During this period, nodes who receive
messages from other nodes will decide it is a non-cluster­
head. Otherwise, the node has more remainder energy than
others and it will be a cluster head node. In this way, the
energy load associated with being a cluster head is evenly
distributed among the nodes.
508
Since the cluster head node knows all the cluster
members, it acts as local control centers to coordinate the
data transmissions in the cluster. The cluster head node sets
up a TDMA schedule and transmits this schedule to the
nodes in the cluster. This ensures that there are no collisions
among data messages and also allows the radio components
of each non-cluster-head node to be turned off at all times
except during their transmit time, thus minimizing the
energy dissipated by the individual sensors.
In order to reduce the energy consumption of the cluster
heads which are far away from BS and balance the energy
consumption of the cluster heads which are close to BS, a
multiple-hop routing algorithm of cluster head is presented,
which introduces into the restriction factor of remainder
energy when selects the interim nodes between cluster heads
included.
A. Energy Model
We have assumed an area S= M* M m2 over which n nodes
are uniformly distributed. The sink is located in the centre of
the field, and that the distance of any node to the BS its
cluster head is .;;; do. Thus, the energy dissipated by the
cluster head node during a round is given by the following
formula:
Eeh = ( � -l)*L* Eelee + � *L * EDA +L* Eelee +L*GI< *d�s (2)
Where k is the number of clusters, EDA is the processing cost
of a bit report to the BS, and dBS is the average distance
between a cluster head and the sink. The energy used in a
non-cluster-head node is equal to:
Enonch L * Eelec + L * Gjs * d�H
= (3)
where dCH is the average distance between a cluster member
and its cluster head.
The total energy dissipated in the network is equal to:
Et = L * (2n * Eelec + n * EDA + (k * d;s + n * d�lI» (4)
If the distance of a significant percentage of nodes to the
sink is greater than do then, we obtain:
kopt = /n
Vl;
�G &!'
mp
�
d;s
(5)
The optimal probability of a node to become a cluster
head, Popt, can be computed as follows:
(6)
The optimal communication radius R can be computed by
S, the area of communication field and the kopt:
VGGmp
1[
4 {2;
(7)
R .JMdss
=
V --;;
n fs
B. Cluster-Head Selection Phase
Most of the analytical results of previous research are
obtained assuming that the nodes of the sensor network are
equipped with the same amount of energy. In this paper we
have studied the impact of heterogeneity in terms of node
energy. We have described our developed model for a WSN
with nodes heterogeneous in types of nodes in the sensor
field with different energy (type-A, type-B and type-C node).
Type-A and type-B are equipped with a and � times more
energy than type-C nodes. And m! and m2are the percentage
of type-A and type-B nodes in the nodes set. Intuitively,
type-A and type-B nodes have to become cluster heads more
often than the type-C nodes. The new heterogeneous setting
has changed the total initial energy of the network. We have
assumed the EA, EB, and Ec is the initial energy of type-C
node, energy of type-A and type-B is as follows:
EA=Ec(1+a)
EB=EcCl+�)
The total initial energy of the new heterogeneous network
setting is equal to:
Et n(l - m] - mz )Ec + nm] EA + nmz Es
=
Let Q=m! a+m2� ' then
Et nEc (l+ Q)
= (8)
New epoch of the heterogeneous network is:
l+ Q
N =
(9)
e
threshold T(sl) and T(s2) are evaluated for type-A and type­
B nodes.
Then, we select the cluster head according to the optimal
communication radius R in Equation 7. To avoid setting up
the independent cluster head, which is not included in the
communication area of any cluster, we choose the actual
radius r (r=c*R, c>1). Give each node a timer according to
its remainder energy. The rule is, the more remainder energy
the node has, the less time of its timer. Thus, node with
more remainder energy has less time than node with less
remainder energy.
At the beginning of the cluster head set-up phase, all
nodes start up its timer to count down, and broadcast an
advertisement message-"I am the cluster head". For node S,
it can receive all messages from nodes in the area with
radius r. If S receives a message before its timer counts
down, the status of node S is non-cluster-head. Otherwise, if
node S can't receive any message when time is out, it
broadcasts an advertisement message-"I am the cluster
head". This message is a small message containing node S's
ID, remainder energy and a header identifier that
distinguishes this message as an announcement message.
Then the status of node S is the cluster head.
C. Cluster Setup Phase
Each non-cluster-head node determines to which cluster it

Popt belongs by choosing the cluster head with the maximum

The new epoch Ne must be changed accordingly as the
energy of the system is increased. The stable region of the
sensor network is increased by (l+Q) times. That is, (1)
each type-C node becomes a cluster head once every
(l+Q)IPopt rounds per epoch; (2) each type-A node becomes
a cluster head exactly (l+a) times every (l+Q)IPopt rounds
per epoch; (3) each type-B node becomes a cluster head
exactly (1+�) times every (1+Q)/Popt rounds per epoch. Thus,
the optimal selection percentage of each node is:
remainder energy, and that requires the minimum
communication energy, based on the received signal
strength of the advertisement from each cluster head. First
of all, non-cluster-head nodes calculate the approximate
distance d between the sender nodes and itself based on the
received signal strength. The distance d should be unitary
processed as follows:
2
arctan(d) * -
7r

P opt We introduce a competition parameter Cjoin. it calculates

PA = * (1 + a)
l+ Q as follows:

P opt
* (1 +
/3) C j in =
a * Eremainder + (1- a ) * (1- arctan(d) * 3..) (11)
Ps =

I+ Q
O
7r

where Eremainder is the remainder energy of the cluster head

P opt candidate.
Pc =
I+ Q

{
Each node decides to which cluster it belongs by the
We define T(sl), T(s2) and T(s3) are the threshold for type­ maximum Cjoin. After that, the node informs the cluster head
A, type-B and type-C nodes. Thus, for type-C nodes node that it will be a member of the cluster. Each node

if s3 E GP3 transmits a join-request message back to the chosen cluster

T(s3)= I-P3(r mod �) (10)
P3
o otherwise
Where r is the current round, G is the set of type-A nodes
that have not become cluster heads within the last lip!
rounds of the epoch, and T(s3) is the threshold applied to a
population of n*(1 -m r m2) type-C nodes. Similarly,
head. This message is a short message, consisting of the
node's ID and the cluster head's ID.
Because the cluster head nodes consume their energy
faster than other nodes, we must choose some assistant­
cluster head (candidate-CH) nodes to assist the cluster
head's work.
In each round, every cluster head node broadcasts to other
nodes in its cluster, and these non-cluster head nodes will
send back their confirmation message to the cluster head.

509
The confirmation message contains the remainder energy
Erem of this non-cluster head node. Each cluster head node
sorts descending by Erem and chooses the top x stronger
nodes as the assistant-CH nodes. These assistant-CH nodes
assist the cluster head to gather, fuse information and assign
tasks to other nodes. The flow is as follows:
The cluster head node is numbered No. 1 CH node, other
x stronger assistant-CH are numbered No. 2, . . . , No.(x+ 1)
nodes in descend order by Erem. The cluster heads act as
local control centers to coordinate the data transmissions in
their cluster. The cluster head node sets up a TDMA
schedule and transmits this schedule to the nodes in the
cluster. This ensures that there are no collisions among data
messages. The whole data transmission time is divided
equally into m TDMA slots. In each TDMA slot, No. 1,
No.2, . . . ,No.(x+l) node will gather, fuse information and
transmit data to Base Station sequentially. The strategy of
using the collaboration of cluster head and assistant-CH
nodes improves energy efficiency and prolongs the system
lifetime.
Figure 1 shows the process 0 f c1 uster-setup pIhase.
Select k cluster head nodes
E is the edge set, w is the right set of distances between to
nodes in V set. The main purpose is to utilize the Prim
algorithm to find a minimum spanning tree (MST) in graph
G, that is, the MST implement the multiple-hop, short­
distance communication between the cluster heads and BS,
and find an optimal short-distance path in the cluster heads'
communication. Considering balance the energy
consumption of the cluster heads which are close to BS, we
choose the remainder energy as a restriction factor to select
the interim nodes between cluster heads and BS. The
improved Prim algorithm is as follows:
Algorithm: Improved Prim algorithm
Input: A weighted, undirected graph G=(V, E, w)
Output: A minimum spanning tree T
T�<I>
Let BS be the first vertex from V to join T
U� {BS}
while I U]<k do
Find UE U and VE V-U such that the edge (u, v) is a
smallest edge between U and V-U
if Eremainder of vertex v ;::.Eini/30% then
T�TU {(u, v)}

1 U�UU {v}
endif
non-cluster head nodes join the cluster
else if Eremainder of vertex v ;::.EAVG then
according to the value of distance d
and Eremainder
T�TU {(u, v)}
U�UU {v}
1 endif
else Find the next edge (u, v) with a smaller edge
choose assistant-CH nodes
between U and V- U
! Where Einitis the initial energy of a cluster head, and EAVG
CH and assistant-CH cooperate is the average remainder energy of all cluster heads.
together to balance the energy This improved Prim algorithm appears to spend most of
consumption and setup cluster
its time finding the smallest edge to grow. A straightforward
Fig 1. Process of Cluster-Setup Phase method finds the smallest edge by searching the adjacency
lists of the vertices in V; the each iteration costs Oem) time,
D. Routing Path Construction Phase yielding a total running time of O(mn).
In LEACH, cluster head transmit information to BS
directly, if cluster head is not far away from the BS, IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
LEACH will has favorable performance. By contraries, the
In the simulation test, we compare some indicators such
cluster head will consume lots of energy for long distance
as the network lifetime, the number of nodes alive and the
communication. This situation will speed up the death of
network energy consumption in protocol of LEACH,
cluster heads and shorten the lifetime of system. In order to
EECHE and our method (LEACH-HPR). Table 1 shows the
reduce the energy consumption of the cluster heads which
parameter list in the simulation test.
are far away from BS and balance the energy consumption
of the cluster heads which are close to BS, a multiple-hop TABLE I. PARAMETER LIST OF THIS SIMULATION TEST
routing algorithm of cluster head is presented, which
introduces into the restriction factor of remainder energy Parameters Value

when selects the interim nodes between cluster heads and Network field (0,0)-(100, I 00)
BS, and also the minimum spanning tree algorithm is Node members 200
included.
Sink position (20, 75)
In this section, we present some definitions and notations
that will be used later. The topology of a heterogeneous Initial energy I J

WSN is represented as a weighted graph G=(V, E, w) , Number of CH per round 5% of number nodes in cluster
where V is the cluster head node set, including the BS, and Number of assistant-CH per round 20% of number nodes in cluster

510
 Length of transmitted message 2000 bit

V. CONCLUSION
The simulation has been done using NS2.
In this paper, LEACH-HPR introduced an energy
efficient cluster head election method and using the
200
.: ' improved Prim algorithm to construct an inter-cluster
.:': '-
<1)

'" 150 routing in the heterogeneous WSN. Simulation results show

� '- LEACH-HPR is more efficient to reduce and balance
"0
,
100
0

'-
"

0
energy consumption and hence prolong the lifetime of WSN.
i;
50
.0
E
g
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
0
0 150 300 450 500 750 1000 1200 1500 This work is supported by the Scientific Creative
number of rounds Platform Foundation of Beijing Municipal Commission of
Education (No. PXM2008_014224_067420), the 2010 level
Fig 2. Comparison of Network Lifetime of scientific research of improving project (No. 5028123900)
and the Science and Research Foundation (No. 1025023) of
Beijing Information Science and Technology University.
:::: 0.8
-go
1i 0.6
>
o REFERENCES
;: 0.4
o
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