An Optimized Hierarchal Cluster Formation Approach for Management of Smart Cities

Abstract

A smart city is a metropolis technology that employs information technology with several internet of things (IoT) devices to enhance the quality of services for citizens, such as the traffic system, energy consumption, and waste collection. In fact, the quality of service (QoS) of these daily routine services are based on an assistive observation system. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), as the key component of IoT, are used here to gather data into surveillance subsystems for supporting the decision making. To enhance the collected data management of the surveillance subsystems, many clustering techniques are introduced. The low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy protocol (LEACH) is a key clustering technique of WSN. However, this protocol has deterring limitations, especially in the cluster formation step, which negatively impacts the residual power of many nodes. In fact, a limited number of efforts that try to optimize the clustering formation step represent the main motivation of this work. Considering this problem, the current research proposes an optimized approach to enhance the cluster formation phase of LEACH. The proposed approach depends on the suitability of the residual energy in the nodes to cover the communication energy, with CHs (cluster heads) as a key factor when allocating the node clusters in the first competition. The remaining power and the density of CHs are employed to weigh the accepted CHs and adjust the optimized size of the clusters in the secondary competition. The third competition helps each cluster to select the optimal members from the candidate members according to the impact of each. The advantages and efficiency of the ICSI (intelligent cluster selection approach for IoT) are observed via the ratio of surviving nodes increasing by 21%, residual energy increasing in 32% of the nodes, and a 34% higher network lifetime.