Prolonging network lifetime and optimizing energy consumption using swarm optimization in mobile wireless sensor networks

Purpose This paper aims to provide prolonging network lifetime and optimizing energy consumption in mobile wireless sensor networks (MWSNs). Forming clusters of mobile nodes is a great task owing to their dynamic nature. Such clustering has to be performed with a higher consumption of energy. Perhaps sensor nodes might be supplied with batteries that cannot be recharged or replaced while in the field of operation. One optimistic approach to handle the issue of energy consumption is an efficient way of cluster organization using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique. Design/methodology/approach In this paper two improved versions of centralized PSO, namely, unequal clustering PSO (UC-PSO) and hybrid K-means clustering PSO (KC-PSO), are proposed, with a focus of achieving various aspects of clustering parameters such as energy consumption, network lifetime and packet delivery ratio to achieve energy-efficient and reliable communication in MWSNs. Findings Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that improved PSO algorithms provide a balanced energy consumption among the cluster heads and increase the network lifetime effectively. Research limitations/implications In this work, each sensor node transmits and receives packets at same energy level only. In this work, focus was on centralized clustering only. Practical implications To validate the proposed swarm optimization algorithm, a simulation-based performance analysis has been carried out using NS-2. In each scenario, a given number of sensors are randomly deployed and performed in a monitored area. In this work, simulations were carried out in a 100 × 100 m2 network consisting 200 nodes by using a network simulator under various parameters. The coordinate of base station is assumed to be 50 × 175. The energy consumption due to communication is calculated using the first-order radio model. It is considered that all nodes have batteries with initial energy of 2 J, and the sensing range is fixed at 20 m. The transmission range of each node is up to 25 m and node mobility is set to 10 m/s. Practical implications This proposed work utilizes the swarm behaviors and targets the improvement of mobile nodes’ lifetime and energy consumption. Originality/value PSO algorithms have been implemented for dynamic sensor nodes, which optimize the clustering and CH selection in MWSNs. A new fitness function is evaluated to improve the network lifetime, energy consumption, cluster formation, packet transmissions and cluster head selection.