Received: 16 April 2019 Revised: 21 January 2020 Accepted: 30 January 2020

DOI: 10.1002/eng2.12130

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Load balanced fuzzy-based unequal clustering for wireless

sensor networks assisted Internet of Things

Deepika Agrawal Sudhakar Pandey

Department of IT, National Institute of

Technology Raipur, Raipur, India Abstract
The fundamental unit of the Internet of Things (IoT) is wireless sensor networks
Correspondence
(WSNs). Due to their low cost and prospective use, WSNs have drawn interest
Deepika Agrawal, Department of IT,
National Institute of Technology Raipur, in various applications over the last years. Since sensor nodes are equipped with
Raipur, India. limited battery, it is vital energy consumption be carefully monitored. There-
Email: [email protected]
fore, minimizing the node energy consumption is clearly essential to extend the
network lifetime. In this paper, a fuzzy-based unequal clustering protocol is pro-
posed. Not only does the proposed protocol prolong the network lifetime, but
it also balances the load among nodes. Former protocols do not consider load
balancing. Fuzzy logic is employed considering four inputs: residual energy, dis-
tance to a base station, node degree and centrality. To validate its efficiency,
the novel protocol is compared with other relevant protocols. The obtained
results prove that the protocol here proposed outperforms other state-of-the-art
protocols.

KEYWORDS
energy efficiency, fuzzy logic, network lifetime, unequal clustering, wireless sensor networks

1 I N T RO DU CT ION

The aim of the future internet is to accommodate several diversified technologies related to wireless communication as
well as wired communication. This emphasizes the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT).1 There are several ways to por-
tray the meaning of the IoT like it can be described as a global network of interrelated and uniquely addressable entities.
The IoT is a ubiquitous network that connects several smart objects and devices to the cloud. Wireless sensor networks
(WSN) provides a platform to collect, communicate and monitor the data for the advancement of the society.2 The sensor
technology is relatively low-cost, hence WSN have drawned importance in many different applications such as healthcare,
agriculture, landslide detection, smart cities, smart buildings and many more.
As per Gartner report,3 the number of connected devices will be high. Nearly 5 billion smart entities are coupled; and
approximately 20 billion entities are expected to be coupled by 2020.These “entities” are not general-purpose devices,
such as smart phones and PCs, but dedicated-function objects, such as vending machines, jet engines, connected cars
and a myriad of other examples. This will obviously lead to the huge traffic generation. WSN acts as a channel that links
the digital world to the real world. It opens several opportunities to explore the IoT in various research areas due to its
challenges.4-6

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
© 2020 The Authors. Engineering Reports published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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WSN designed for the IoT comprise billions of sensing nodes that collaborate with each other to perform some sensing
tasks and convey data to the sink or Base Station (BS). Sensor nodes are deployed randomly in an ad-hoc manner.7 Sensor
nodes have several constraints like limited battery, limited memory as well as computation power. They are often deployed
in a hostile environment hence it would be impossible to replace or recharge the battery. The network's lifetime depends on
the consumption of the energy by the nodes present in the network. Therefore, the consumption of the node's energy is to
be properly administered to extend the network lifetime.8 WSN can be either homogeneous or heterogeneous. A majority
of application needs a network to be heterogeneous. Heterogeneity posed several challenges in terms of interoperability
and abstraction amid high layers and low layers.
The design of WSN for the applications of the IoT confronts various challenges in terms of hardware cost, compu-
tational cost, battery, number of sensor nodes, communication mode and many more.9 The sensor nodes used in the
IoT model possess sensing as well as other additional capabilities like multiple sensing, self-decision making; hence face
other new challenges in terms of security and Quality of Service (QoS).10 Some of the challenges faced by the IoT can be
resolved by the approaches used for WSN.
The paper primarily deals with the issue of reduction in the energy consumption of WSN meant for IoT. In recent
times, most of the research has been carried out to reduce the consumption of the energy and prolongs the network life-
time. Different authors and researchers proposed the solution such as clustering,11,12 routing,13 scheduling14 and many
more to the above-stated problem to improve the energy efficiency of IoT based WSN. In this paper, some novel con-
tributions are proposed. The research work mainly focuses on clustering of nodes to balance the nodes present in the
network as well as minimizing the dissipation of the node's energy.11,12,15,16 Clustering is a technique used for the peri-
odic collection of data. In this technique, the network is divided into clusters with one leader is elected known as Cluster
Head (CH).17 All other nodes that are not elected as CH become cluster members (CMs). Nodes are capable to sense the
physical phenomena and send the data to the CH then CH collects the data from all cluster members of its cluster and
performs aggregation. The aggregated data is transmitted to the sink by either single-hop or multihop communication.
Clustering can be of two types namely, equal clustering and unequal clustering.17-19 In equal clustering, clusters of
equal sizes are formed while in unequal clustering, clusters near the BS are smaller to that of clusters which are far away
from BS.
An energy hole or hotspot issue is an issue in which sensor nodes near the BS die prematurely. Since nodes near the
sink sometimes act as a relay node, so dissipates more energy. Unequal clustering is used to cope up with this issue.19
Designing an energy-efficient clustering protocol is an NP-hard problem.20 To design this, various computational intel-
ligence methods like fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization to name a few have
been employed in WSN for various issues.21-24 To solve the uncertainties in the WSN, generally fuzzy logic is used. A sys-
tem can be made more optimized with incomplete information with the use of fuzzy logic.25 Though the discussion has
been done in the above section related to the problem and their possible solutions in different circumstances and it seems
difficult to claim a particular technique is the best among them all.
A fuzzy logic consists of three different parts.26 They are fuzzifier, inference engine, and a defuzzifier. The input crisp
value is converted into an appropriate fuzzy linguistic variable by the fuzzifier block. The inference engine component
processed the fuzzified values. A fuzzy rule component is simply a set of if-then rules that are needed to convert inputs
into outputs. Defuzzifier block defuzzify the fuzzy linguistic output variable into crisp output value by using a suitable
defuzzification method.

1.1 Main contribution and organization of the paper

The protocol which is presented in27 is based on equal clustering hence, suffers from hot spot problem. To mitigate this
problem, unequal clustering is proposed in which a parameter namely, competition radius is calculated through fuzzy
logic. An unequal clustering is proposed in this paper to prolong the lifetime of the sensor nodes for the IoT model.
This scheme uses the fuzzy logic approach. Four inputs are given to the system, namely, residual energy, distance to a
base station, node degree and centrality. Fuzzy if-then rules are applied to these inputs to generate two outputs namely,
competition radius and rank. The proposed protocol balances the load among the nodes in the networks and prolongs
the network lifetime by minimizing the dissipation of the energy. The main contributions of this paper are:

• First, to the best of our knowledge, the proposed protocol based on unequal clustering is the first protocol for WSN
assisted IoT applications.
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AGRAWAL and PANDEY 3 of 21

• The cluster radius has a significant role in maximizing the network lifetime, hence, unequal clustering is proposed.
• It is a fuzzy-based distributed unclustering algorithm designed for the large-scale nonuniform network.
• Each node calculates the probability of being elected as a CH by the fuzzy logic approach.
• The clusters of variable sizes are formed using a fuzzy logic approach by considering the same four parameters.
• It blends the probabilistic approach with the fuzzy logic approach in a suitable manner.
• Finally, an extensive simulation is done to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol. The simulation results
illustrate that the proposed protocol significantly prolongs the network lifetime when compared with state-of-the-art
schemes.

The remaining of the paper is as follows:

Section 2 describes the related work done so far in a comprehensive manner. Section 3 represents the network topology
and the model used for experimental analysis. Section 4 gives a detailed description of the proposed protocol. Section 5
gives an analysis of the protocol. Section 6 depicts the simulation environment and the parameters used for simulation.
Section 7 analyses the experimental results. Section 8 gives the conclusion followed by some future works.

2 RELATED WORK

IoT consists of a huge amount of sensor nodes that are to be deployed, so the main issue of IoT is to handle them and
their servicing and maintenance cost is very high.28 Moreover, the replacement of sensor nodes batteries that are already
placed is also very high as they are deployed in a very harsh environment.29
For IoT applications, LEACH protocol30 is extensively improved by several researchers for the betterment of the net-
work performances of the IoT systems. Other protocols of WSNs can also be modified to enhance the network performance
of the IoT systems.31
The IoT is a ubiquitous network that connects the smart entities to the cloud. WSN senses the physical phenomena,
gives a way to collect the sensed data and communicate the data to the server for monitoring purpose.3 Nearly 70% of the
energy is exhausted in the communication process. Since IoT contains a huge amount of smart entities that are connected
to the internet, this made energy preservation a crucial issue in the IoT model.
The development of energy-efficient techniques for WSN has always a crucial task for researchers. When WSN merged
with IoT, it becomes a more vital task. For maintaining IoT standards, the focus is on device energy-conserving methods
for example clustering in which the selection of Cluster Heads could be done wisely by considering various parameters.
Several techniques have been developed for efficient CH selection that prolongs the network lifetime.
Gupta et al32 proposed a protocol that implements fuzzy logic during CH election. Inputs given to the system are
residual energy, node's degree, and node centrality. This work is not compatible with large-scale WSN as it suffers from
scalability issues.
Cluster Head election mechanism using Fuzzy logic (CHEF)33 uses a fuzzy logic mechanism to elect the final CHs.
First tentative CHs are chosen by probabilistic method then fuzzy logic is employed to elect final CHs. Inputs given to the
fuzzy system are residual energy and the average distance of a node from its neighbors.
Above mentioned protocols have not considered the energy hole issues of WSN. In recent times, some unequal clus-
tering algorithms are developed. The main idea behind unequal clustering is to create a cluster of less size near the sink.
This variable size cluster is defined by the distance to the base station. A node near to the sink has a smaller cluster size
to that of nodes that are located far away from the sink.
A fuzzy energy-aware unequal clustering algorithm (EAUCF)22 takes in to account other factors for computation of
cluster size. Fuzzy logic is used for this purpose. Tentative CHs are elected by a probabilistic approach. Final CHs are
elected by considering the residual energy of nodes only. Inputs to the fuzzy logic are residual energy and distance of a
node from BS.
Fuzzy based unequal clustering (FBUC) and multiobjective fuzzy clustering algorithm for wireless sensor networks
(MOFCA)34,35 is an advancement of EAUCF. MOFCA considers node density as an additional parameter for computation
of cluster size while FBUC considers node degree as an additional parameter. Final CHs selections are based on the single
parameter. This leads to a nonuniform distribution of CHs.
An optimization problem is considered for the proposed network structure in terms of load balance and energy con-
sumption for the implementation of an efficient and scalable IoT.8 A framework is designed for the IoT deployment and
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based on which, an optimization technique is proposed which considers the energy expenditure. After that, ME-CBCCP
protocol is proposed to provide a solution to this optimization problem. This shows a significant improvement in terms
of delay, packet delivery ratio, and throughput and energy consumption. A dynamic heterogeneous clustering algorithm
is proposed by considering features like connectivity, mobility, and communication.36 The cluster formation is done by
considering the parameters like neighbor count and residual energy.
A new energy-efficient clustering protocol for sensor devices in IoT is proposed.11 A genetic algorithm is used to select
the cluster heads with the highest energy level and the lower amount of data transmission. This algorithm decreases
energy consumption and end-to-end delay.
Fuzzy-based unequal clustering algorithm (FUCA)37 is a protocol that considers other factors at the time of calculation
of cluster size. Competition radius and rank is calculated for each node by using the fuzzy logic approach. Inputs given to
the fuzzy system are the distance to a base station, residual energy, and density. The outputs produced are Competition
radius and rank. However, it suffers from intracluster communication overhead.
A novel Lifetime Maximizing optimal Clustering Algorithm (LiMCA) is proposed for IoT devices.38 Here, both
Cluster Heads (CHs) and Member Nodes (MNs) are deployed at predetermined locations. For deployment, a novel
deployment scheme is proposed. In addition, a training protocol is proposed to train CHs and MNs about their cluster
identity.
Improved grid-based hybrid network deployment (IGHND)39 is proposed for grid-based WSN. This protocol con-
siders several parameters for CH selection. However, it suffers from load balancing and the energy dissipation rate
is high.
To the best of my knowledge, none of the researchers focused on the issue of intracluster overhead. The reduction in
the intracluster communication cost of a node results in saving of the dissipation of energy.

3 PRELIMINARIES

The network consists of N sensor nodes having the same capabilities deployed randomly in an X * Y sensor field. The
deployed nodes, as well as the sink, are static. The sink is placed at the center of the field and its location is known to
each and every deployed node. The nodes are homogeneous in terms of energy and their location is known to each other.
The links are assumed symmetric. The cluster heads aggregate the data and directly send the aggregated data to the sink.
Wireless links are used to transmit data and control messages.

3.1 Energy model

The radio model is used to calculate the energy consumed by the nodes. This model employs free space and multipath
fading channels as per the distance between the transmitting node and the receiving node. The free space (fs) model is
utilized if the distance is less than a threshold (d0 ), else the multipath model will be used.32 Therefore, the radio energy
consumption to transmit a k-bits message in d meters as follows:
{
l ∗ Eelec + l ∗ 𝜀𝑓 𝑠 ∗ d2 if d < d0
E𝑇 𝑥 (l, d) = E𝑇 𝑥−elec (l) + E𝑇 𝑥−amp (l, d) = (1)
l ∗ Eelec + l ∗ 𝜀𝑚𝑝 ∗ d4 if d ≥ d0 ,

where Eelec denotes the energy consumption by the electronic circuit, 𝜀fs and 𝜀mp denote the energy consumption by free
space and multipath fading channels, respectively.
The energy required for the radio to receive a k-bits message is shown as follows:

ERX (k) = Eelec ∗ k. (2)

3.2 Data aggregation model

For data aggregation, the infinite compressibility model is used. The cluster heads collect the data from its node members
and aggregate it into a single packet regardless of the number of received packets.
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AGRAWAL and PANDEY 5 of 21

4 PROPOSED PROTO CO L

The proposed protocol is designed for nonuniform large-scale WSN with homogeneous nodes. This section is divided into
two parts:

4.1 Fuzzy system

The fuzzy logic controller is employed to select the CHs and calculates the competition radius. Four inputs are given to
the system and two outputs are produced as shown in Figure 1. Inputs are residual energy, distance to a base station, node
degree and centrality. While the outputs are chance and radius.
Input variables are:

1. Residual energy: It is the most important criterion for the selection of Cluster Head. The cluster head spend a con-
siderably higher amount of energy than other nodes since it collects data from the cluster members, aggregates and
transmits the aggregated data to the sink. In addition, the competition radius should decrease as energy reduces.
2. Distance to the base station: For transmitting the data, the energy consumption by the nodes increases with the increase
in distance between transmitter and receiver nodes. Hence, the distance between CH and BS should be less. Moreover,
clusters near the BS should be small as compared to the clusters that are far away from BS.
3. Centrality: Centrality is a measure of how well the sensor node is located at the center of its neighbors in the whole net-
work. This is an important measure to reduce the intracluster communication cost. Less amount of energy is required
by the cluster members to transmit the data to the CHs if the value of CH's centrality is lower.
4. Node's degree: Node's degree is the number of neighbor nodes with a communication range. A higher value of the
node's degree gives more chance to a node for being selected as a CH. While a higher value of a node's degree means
less competition radius.

Output variables are:

1. Chance: It defines the eligibility of a node to be elected as a CH. The higher the value of a chance output, the higher
the probability of a node to be elected as CH.

FIGURE 1 Fuzzy logic model for the

proposed protocol
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6 of 21 AGRAWAL and PANDEY

2. Radius: It defines the communication range. Nodes near the BS should have less competition radius as compared to
the nodes that are far away from the BS.

Nodes that have high residual energy, less distance to the BS, close centrality, a high number of neighbors nodes will
have less competition radius and the probability to become a CH is very high (Table 1).
The fuzzy set for each input and output variable is shown in Figures 2-7, respectively.
Boundary variables follow the trapezoidal membership function while the middle variable follows the triangular
membership function as shown in figures.
In FIS, the crisp input values are converted into fuzzy linguistic variables. The fuzzy if-then rules based on the Mam-
dani method are applied to map the input variables to the corresponding fuzzy output variables. A total of 81 (34 ) rules is
made with four parameters having different membership functions. Some of the fuzzy if-then rules are shown in Table 2.
Center of Area (CoA) method is used for defuzzification that is, to convert output linguistic variables into a crisp output
value.

T A B L E 1 Variables and their membership functions

Variables Membership function

Inputs Residual energy Low, medium, and high

Distance to base station Far, adequate, and close
Node degree Low, medium, and high
Centrality Far, adequate, and close
Outputs Chance Very very weak (vvw), very weak (vw), weak (w),
little lower medium (llm), lower medium (lm),
higher medium (hm), medium (m), little higher
medium (lhm), little strong (ls), strong (s), very
strong (vs), very very strong (vvs)
Radius Very very small (vvs), very small (vs), small (s), little
lower medium (llm), lower medium (lm), higher
medium (hm), little higher medium (lhm), very
large (vl), little large (ll), very very large (vvl)

FIGURE 2 Fuzzy set for “residual energy”

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AGRAWAL and PANDEY 7 of 21

FIGURE 3 Fuzzy set for “degree”

FIGURE 4 Fuzzy set for “distance to BS”

4.2 Clustering process

This phase is divided into rounds like LEACH protocol. The proposed protocol operates in two phases:

4.2.1 Cluster formation

At the beginning of each round, each sensor node generates a random number between 0 and 1. If the gener-
ated number is less than the predefined threshold then the node will be eligible for the election of CH and the
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FIGURE 5 Fuzzy set for “centrality”

FIGURE 6 Fuzzy set for “chance”

state of that node becomes ELIGIBLE_NODE. Then the eligible node will compute radius and chance. The node
will broadcast ELIGIBLE_NODE_MSG to all the neighbors within its competition radius calculated by FIS. This
ELIGIBLE_NODE_MSG will contain details about the node id and chance value. The nodes whose chance value
is higher within the neighbor will be declared as final CH and broadcast ELECTED_CH_MSG to the neighbors.
The nodes who will not become CH and the nodes that are not eligible will now broadcast JOIN_CH_MSG to
the nearest CH. After cluster formation, CH nodes will generate the TDMA schedule and broadcast it to all the
members.
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AGRAWAL and PANDEY 9 of 21

Algorithm 1. Pseudocode for the proposed protocol

Input: A nonclustered WSN.

Output: A clustered WSN
1. N: total number of sensor nodes
2. i: id of a live sensor node for the current round
3. Rs : Sensing range of a sensor node
4. for all nodes in the network
i. receives NODE_MSG from all the neighbors
ii. updates node[i].Info_table
5. for all nodes in the network
i. x = rand(0,1)
ii. if (x < Pthres )
iii. node[i].status = ELIGIBLE_NODE
iv. else
v. node[i].status = member
vi. end
6. for all the eligible CH nodes
i. node[i].Energyres = residual energy
ii. node[i].NC = node's centrality
iii. node[i].DistBS = Distance to BS
iv. node[i].Neighbors = neighbors of node {Sj :Dist(Si ,Sj ) < = Rs }
v. Cradius , Chance = FIS (node[i].Energyres , node[i].NC, node[i].DistBS , node[i].Neighbors)
vi. Send Eligible_CH_MSG to its Cradius
vii. Y = list of all ELIGIBLE_NODE_MSG from neighbor nodes
viii. this = current sensor node
a) if (this.chance > chance (Y))
a. advertise ELECTED_CH_MSG
b. node[i].status = CH
b) else
a. node[i].status = member
b. broadcasts QUIT_CH_MSG
c) end
7. FCH = set of elected CH nodes
8. FCM = set of non-CH nodes
9. for all the cluster members
10. send JOIN_CH_MSG to closest CH
11. Exit

4.2.2 Data collection

After the cluster formation and generation of TDMA schedules, CH nodes wait for the data. A non-CH node senses
the data and transmits to the respective CH within the allotted time frame. Nodes will go to the sleep state in other
time slots. CH nodes will do aggregation of all the collected data into a single message. The aggregated data will then
finally be transmitted to BS through CHs. The CHs should be in wakeup mode all the time, this leads to the consump-
tion of higher energy by the CHs. The role of CHs is rotated among the sensor nodes in order to balance the energy
consumption.
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10 of 21 AGRAWAL and PANDEY

FIGURE 7 Fuzzy set for “radius”

The total energy drained by the CH at the time of data collection from all the sensor nodes is given by

ETotal = Eintra−cluster + Einter−cluster, (3)

where

Eintra−cluster = ERX + EDA + Enon-CH. (4)

ERX is the energy spent at the time of receiving the data;

EDA is the energy spent at the time of aggregation;
Enon − CH is the energy spent by the non-CH nodes of the particular Cluster Head.

∑ ∑
n m
Enon-CH = ETX (j, CHi ), (5)
i=1 j=1

where m denotes the number of members within a cluster, n denotes the number of clusters ETX (j, CHi ) is the energy
spent for transmission from node j to its CH in the ith cluster

EDA = k.m.Eperdatabit, (6)

where k is the number of bits, Eperdatabit is the aggregation energy for single data bit

∑
m
Einter−cluster = (ETX (CHi , BS)). (7)
i=1

Moreover, when CH acts as a gateway node for the members and does not generate any data on its own then-
( )
N
ECH = (k.Eelec + k.EDA ) − 1 + k.Eelec + k.𝜖mp .d4 . (8)
n

N is the number of nodes.

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AGRAWAL and PANDEY 11 of 21

T A B L E 2 Fuzzy if-then rules

S. no. Residual energy Distance to BS Degree Centrality Chance Radius

1. low close low close vvw vvs

2. low adeq low far vw vs
3. low close low far w s
4. low far low adequate vw vs
5. low adeq low adequate llm llm
6. low close low adequate lm lm
7. low far low close w s
8. low adeq low close lm lm
9. low close low close lhm lhm
10. low far medium far vw vs
11 low adeq medium far llm llm
12 low close medium far lm lm
13 low far medium adequate llm llm
14 low adeq medium adequate lm lm
15 low close medium adequate medium med
16 low far medium close lm lm
17 low adeq medium close medium med
18 low close medium close ls ll
19 low far high far w s
20 low adeq high far lm lm
21 low close high far lhm lhm
22 low far high adequate lm lm
23 low adeq High adequate medium med
24 low close high adequate ls ll
25 low far high close lhm lhm
26 low adeq high close ls ll
27 low close high close strong l
28 medium far low far vw vs
29 medium adeq low far llm llm
30 medium close low far lm lm
31 medium far low adequate llm llm
32 medium adeq low adequate lm lm
33 medium close low adequate medium med
34 medium far low close lm lm
35 medium adeq low close medium med
36 medium close low close ls ll
37 medium far high far llm llm
38 medium adeq medium far lm lm
39 medium close medium far medium med
40 medium far medium adequate lm lm
(Continues)
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12 of 21 AGRAWAL and PANDEY

T A B L E 2 (Continued)
S. no. Residual energy Distance to BS Degree Centrality Chance Radius

41 medium adeq medium adequate m med

42 medium close medium adequate hm hm
43 medium far medium close medium med
44 medium adeq medium close hm hm
45 medium close medium close strong l
46 medium far high far lm lm
47 medium adeq high far medium med
48 medium close high far ls ll
49 medium far high adequate medium med
50 medium adeq high adequate hm hm
51 medium close high adequate strong l
52 medium far high close ls ll
53 medium adeq high close strong l
54 medium close high close vs vl
55 high far low far w s
56 high adeq low far lm lm
57 high close low far lhm lhm
58 high far low adequate lm lm
59 high adeq low adequate medium med
60 high close low adequate ls ll
61 high far low close lhm lhm
62 high adeq low close ls lhm
63 high close low close strong l
64 high far medium far lm lm
65 high adeq medium far medium med
66 high close medium far ls ll
67 high far medium adequate medium med
68 high adeq medium fdequate hm hm
69 high close medium adequate strong l
70 high far medium close ls ll
71 high adeq medium close strong l
72 high close medium close vs vl
73 high far high far lhm lhm
74 high adeq high far ls ll
75 high close high far strong l
76 high far high adequate ls ll
77 high adeq high adequate strong l
78 high close high adequate vs vl
79 high far high close strong l
80 high adeq high close vs vl
81 high close high close vvs vvl
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AGRAWAL and PANDEY 13 of 21

When CH involves sensing-

( ) ( )
N N
ECH = k.Eelec − 1 + k.EDA + k.Eelec + k.𝜖mp .d4 . (9)
n n

5 P ROTO COL ANALY SIS

The following points are drawn based on findings from the literature survey and were laid down in the below section:

a. Intracluster communication cost is not considered in many protocols.

b. The reduction in the intracluster communication cost of a node results in saving of the dissipation of energy.
c. The proposed protocol selects cluster heads based on four parameters, that is, residual energy, distance to a base station,
node degree and centrality.
d. Centrality ensures the less intracluster communication cost.
e. It helps in prolonging the network lifetime as the selection of CHs involves residual energy.
f. The unequal clustering helps in balancing the load among the nodes in the network.
g. The competition radius is also calculated by considering the same four parameters.
h. The fuzzy logic controller is employed to select the cluster head as well as calculates the competition radius. Fuzzy
logic makes the process simple by handling all the uncertainties.
i. Load balancing and the prolongation of a lifetime are considered in the proposed protocol.

6 PERFORMANCE EVA LUAT ION

6.1 Simulation environment

The proposed algorithm is simulated using MATLAB. To prove the efficacy of the proposed algorithm, differ-
ent scenarios are created for the simulations. The random generation of nodes brings some coincidence factors
which may influence the results of the experiment. Hence, the results of the average of 50 experiments are
taken.
100, 200, 300 and 400 nodes are taken for 100 × 100 regions of interest. The sink position is placed first at the center
of the region of interest, then at the corner and finally away from the area of interest. So, in total 12 scenarios are created
that are represented in Table 3.

T A B L E 3 Scenarios for evaluation of the proposed protocol

S. no. Representation Region of interest Number of nodes Sink position

1. SN#1 100 × 100 100 (50,50)

2. SN#2 100 × 100 200 (50,50)
3. SN#3 100 × 100 300 (50,50)
4. SN#4 100 × 100 400 (50,50)
5. SN#5 100 × 100 100 (100100)
6. SN#6 100 × 100 200 (100100)
7. SN#7 100 × 100 300 (100100)
8. SN#8 100 × 100 400 (100100)
9. SN#9 100 × 100 100 (150150)
10. SN#10 100 × 100 200 (150150)
11. SN#11 100 × 100 300 (150150)
12. SN#12 100 × 100 400 (150150)
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14 of 21 AGRAWAL and PANDEY

6.2 Simulation parameters

Table 4 listed the parameters of the simulation. The first order radio energy model is used for calculating the dissipation
of energy. The performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated with some well-known equal and unequal clustering
protocols like MOFCA,35 IGHND39 and FUCA.37

7 RE S U LTS AN D D ISCU SSION

7.1 Network lifetime evaluation

The first node death (FND) value for each of the protocol is represented in Table 5. The important parameter that is
required to estimate performance in an IoT based WSN is network lifetime. It is defined as the round in which the first cov-
erage hole or the death of the first node occurs. Hence, prolongation of the lifetime of the network is of utmost importance
in WSN.

7.2 Number of dead nodes evaluation

Figures 8-11 depict the number of dead nodes with a network setup of 100, 200, 300 and 400 nodes, respectively and the
sink is placed at the center of the region of interest. In all the four scenarios, MOFCA and IGHND give a poor performance
while the proposed protocol gives an effective result.

T A B L E 4 Simulation parameters
Parameters Values

Located area of nodes (m2 ) 100 × 100

Deployment of nodes Randomly distributed
Location of sink Center, corner and away
Number of deployed nodes 100, 200, 300, and 400
Initial energy 0.5 J
Eelec 50 nJ/bit
𝜀amp 0.0010 pJ/bit/m4
EDA 5 nJ/bit

T A B L E 5 First node death value of all algorithms

Scenario MOFCA IGHND FUCA Proposed

SN#1 485 514 743 823

SN#2 419 491 769 887
SN#3 447 528 785 858
SN#4 492 498 748 928
SN#5 365 482 580 819
SN#6 284 440 526 872
SN#7 348 430 500 884
SN#8 332 446 514 956
SN#9 48 106 169 614
SN#10 24 97 154 596
SN#11 36 91 177 529
SN#12 24 91 157 598
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15 of 21

Dead nodes for SN#3

Dead nodes for SN#4

Dead nodes for SN#1

Dead nodes for SN#2

AGRAWAL and PANDEY

F I G U R E 10

F I G U R E 11
FIGURE 8

FIGURE 9
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16 of 21 AGRAWAL and PANDEY

F I G U R E 12 Dead nodes for SN#5

F I G U R E 13 Dead nodes for SN#6

F I G U R E 14 Dead nodes for SN#7

The reason because of which the proposed protocol gives an effective performance with its counterparts is that the for-
mer uses a parameter namely centrality to cope up with the issue of high intracluster communication cost. IGHND is based
on equal clustering hence poor load balancing among nodes. MOFCA is based on unequal clustering but selects cluster
heads based on energy only. FUCA considers all the parameters but suffers from high intracluster communication costs.
Table 5 illustrates the simulation results for all the scenarios.
For scenario 1, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol increases the network lifetime by 41.07%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 37.54%, and FUCA by 9.72%.
For scenario 2, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol increases the network lifetime by 52.76%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 44.64%, and FUCA by 13.30%.
For scenario 3, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol increases the network lifetime by 47.90%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 38.46%, and FUCA by 8.51%.
For scenario 4, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol increases the network lifetime by 46.98%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 46.33%, and FUCA by 19.39%.
Figures 12-15 show the network lifetime with respect to 100, 200, 300, and 400 nodes setup, respectively. Here, the sink
is placed at the corner of the region of interest. The proposed protocol shows better improvement over all the protocols in
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AGRAWAL and PANDEY 17 of 21

F I G U R E 15 Dead nodes for SN#8

F I G U R E 16 Dead nodes for SN#9

all the scenarios. At the time of the selection of cluster heads, the proposed protocol considers how much central a node
is. This reduces the intracluster communication cost. The energy dissipation cost in IGHND and MOFCA is very high
while FUCA suffers from intracluster communication costs.
For scenario 5, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol enhances the performances by 55.43%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 41.14%, and FUCA by 29.18%.
For scenario 6, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol enhances the performances by 67.43%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 49.54%, and FUCA by 39.68%.
For scenario 7, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol enhances the performances by 60.63%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 51.35%, and FUCA by 43.43%.
For scenario 8, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol enhances the performances by 65.27%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 53.34%, and FUCA by 46.23%.
Figures 16-19 show the network lifetime with respect to 100, 200, 300, and 400 nodes setup, respectively, when the
sink is on the outside of the region of interest. The proposed protocol shows major improvement over all the protocols
in all the scenarios. The proposed protocol selects the optimal CHs with proposed meta-heuristics and balances the load
among the nodes thus, reducing the dissipation of energy. The protocols used for comparison depletes energy much faster
as compared to the proposed protocol.
For scenario 9, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol enhances the performances by 92.18%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 82.73%, and FUCA by 72.47%.
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18 of 21 AGRAWAL and PANDEY

F I G U R E 17 Dead nodes for SN#10

F I G U R E 18 Dead nodes for SN#11

For scenario 10, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol enhances the performances by 95.97%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 83.72%, and FUCA by 74.16%.
For scenario 11, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol enhances the performances by 93.19%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 82.79%, and FUCA by 66.54%.
For scenario 12, considering the first dead node time, the proposed protocol enhances the performances by 95.98%
when compared to MOFCA, IGHND by 84.78%, and FUCA by 73.74%.
The significant improvement has been shown by the proposed protocol when compared with its counterparts. While
the proposed protocol considers all the essential parameters affecting the network lifetime. The use of a parameter cen-
trality reduces the intracluster communication cost in the proposed protocol, thus prolongs the network lifetime. The
proposed protocol supports more number of rounds even when node density increases and the placement of the sink does
not affect the performance of the proposed protocol.
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AGRAWAL and PANDEY 19 of 21

F I G U R E 19 Dead nodes for SN#12

T A B L E 6 Average remaining energy of protocols

Sink at the Sink at the Sink outside
Number of nodes Algorithms center of AOI corner of AOI of AOI

100 MOFCA 17.999 10.11 9.06

IGHND 19.28 16.66 11.70
FUCA 19.473 20.13 14.09
Proposed 21.02 21.06 19.69
200 MOFCA 21.84 19.30 20.23
IGHND 30.88 33.08 25.17
FUCA 38.49 34.92 29.48
Proposed 39.07 42.77 38.496
300 MOFCA 32.79 28.31 23.19
IGHND 49.93 41.91 40.06
FUCA 50.24 43.999 43.37
Proposed 57.58 61.05 59.13
400 MOFCA 43.87 42.80 29.47
IGHND 63.28 49.28 44.97
FUCA 74.52 81.96 70.35
Proposed 84.17 83.00 79.27

7.3 Network remaining energy evaluation

Table 6 shows the average remaining energy per round by all the algorithms in each and every scenario. This energy
calculation includes all the cost that is, the cluster formation cost, the intracluster communication cost as well as the
intercluster communication cost during a round. The remaining energy of the proposed protocol is high with respect to
the protocols used for comparison. The energy thus saved will prolong the network lifetime and the nodes will be able to
transmit data for a longer duration.
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20 of 21 AGRAWAL and PANDEY

It can be seen from the table that the average remaining energy for the proposed protocol is higher when compared
to other protocols like MOFCA, IGHND, and FUCA. The proposed protocol balances the load among the nodes as well
as solves the energy hole problem by creating small clusters near the sink.

8 CO N C LU S I O N

In this paper, two issues for IoT based wireless sensor networks, namely load balancing and minimization of energy dis-
sipation are considered. The selection of cluster heads is done with the goal to minimize the energy dissipation of the
network and balance the load between the nodes. Here, fuzzy logic is engaged for the selection of cluster heads. The
protocol proposed is compared with different well-known equal and unequal clustering protocols over different network
scenarios. In all scenarios, a significant improvement in terms of network lifetime is observed. In future works, the pro-
posed protocol can be evaluated by incorporating the mobility of nodes and obstacles in the region of interest. It can
further be implemented by considering various other scenarios for IoT-based WSN.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are thankful to the reviewers and the Editor in Chief of this journal for their comments and suggestions to
improve the quality of the manuscript.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare no conflict of interest.

ORCID
Deepika Agrawal https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0252-1777

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How to cite this article: Agrawal D, Pandey S. Load balanced fuzzy-based unequal clustering for wireless sensor
networks assisted Internet of Things. Engineering Reports. 2020;2:e12130. https://doi.org/10.1002/eng2.12130