This document summarizes and compares several energy efficient cluster-based routing protocols for wireless sensor networks. It first provides an overview of cluster-based routing and some common protocols like LEACH. It then summarizes the key aspects of several improved protocols, including ERA, I-LEACH, E-LEACH, CELL-LEACH, ID-LEACH, and VLEACH. These protocols aim to increase network lifetime by modifying how cluster heads are selected based on factors like remaining energy. The document concludes by comparing these protocols and finding that some like I-LEACH and E-LEACH significantly increase network lifetime over the basic LEACH protocol.

1. Int. Journal of Electrical & Electronics Engg. Vol. 2, Spl. Issue 1 (2015) e-ISSN: 1694-2310 | p-ISSN: 1694-2426
NITTTR, Chandigarh EDIT -2015 174
Energy Efficient Cluster Routing Protocols in
Wireless Sensor Network – A Survey
Ankita Singla, Deepali
CS Department, Guru Nanak College, Budhlada, India
Abstract— Wireless sensor network (WSN) is the collection
of nodes which sense the environment conditions such as
temperature, air pollution, wind etc. and send this
information to base station for further processing. In
cluster based routing protocol, cluster head (CH) is elected
which act as intermediate between sensor nodes and base
station. In this paper, we compared the energy efficient
cluster routing protocols based on parameters.
Keywords—LEACH, ERA, I-LEACH ,E-LEACH, CELL-
LEACH, ID-LEACH
I. INTRODUCTION
WSN is the collection of nodes which sense the
environment conditions such as temperature, air
pollution, wind [1] etc. and send this information to base
station for further processing. But how the data should
transmit to base station by sensor nodes depends upon a
protocol. End user can access the data from base station
through internet or satellite as shown in fig 1:
Fig 1 WSN Architecture
In cluster routing protocol, we divide our network
area into number of clusters. In each cluster, one node -
is selected as cluster head which behaves as an
intermediate between other nodes of cluster head and
base station.
An outline of this paper is as follows. Section II
presents the Low Energy Adaptive Cluster Hierarchy
(LEACH) protocol. Section III presents the Energy
Residue Aware (ERA) protocol. Section IV presents the
I-LEACH protocol and Section V presents the E-
LEACH. Section VI presents the Cell-LEACH protocol
and Section VII presents the VLEACH protocol. Section
VIII presents comparison of routing protocols and
section IX describes the conclusion of the paper.
II. LEACH
In [2] author proposed LEACH protocol in CH is
elected based upon probability. Each node chooses a
random number between 0 an d 1. If chosen number is
lower than the threshold frequency is selected as CH.
And threshold is computed by:
T(n) =
P
1 − P ∗ (r mod
1
P
)
∈ Q
0, ℎ
(1)
Where,
P= percentage of maximum cluster heads in
network(5%)
r= current round
Q= set of nodes which have not become cluster
heads in last 1/p rounds.
Non-CH node will select cluster head based upon
signal strength. Non-CH nodes send their sensed
information to their respective CH. CH sends
aggregated data to base station.
III. ERA
In [3] author proposed an ERA protocol. The
election of CH is same as a LEACH. But non-CH
nodes select CH which has maximum total residual
energy of CH and residual energy of node.
Maximum Energy Residue Path =Energy Residue
Of
Cluster Head+ Energy Residue Of Node
(2)
Simulation results show that ERA is better than
LEACH protocol in terms of network lifetime and
energy distribution of nodes.
IV. I-LEACH
In [4] author proposed an Improved LEACH
protocol. In this protocol CH is elected based on
residual energy of node and distance of node from base
station. Each node generates a random number between
0 and 1 which is compared with threshold value. The
threshold value is computed based upon position of
node relative to base station. We divide network area
into four quadrants of equal size. If node and base
station lies in same quadrant we calculate threshold
value as:-
∗( )
α ∗ _
_
+ [(1 − α) ∗
d ] (3)

2. Int. Journal of Electrical & Electronics Engg. Vol. 2, Spl. Issue 1 (2015) e-ISSN: 1694-2310 | p-ISSN: 1694-2426
175 NITTTR, Chandigarh EDIT-2015
If node and base station lies in opposite quadrant we
calculate threshold value as:-
∗( )
(1 − α) ∗ _
_
+
[α ∗ d ] (4)
If node and base station lies in adjacent quadrant
then threshold value calculated as:-
∗( )
(α/2) ∗ _
_
+
[(α/2) ∗ d ] (5)
Where P is percentage of desired CH, r is current
round, α is constant having value 0.75, E _ is
remaining energy of node, E _ is initial energy of
node and d is distance between node and sink. Non-
CH nodes select CH based on signal strength.
Simulation results show that I-LEACH is better than
LEACH in terms of network lifetime.
V. E-LEACH
In [5] author proposed E-LEACH protocol. In the E-
LEACH algorithm, CH is not selected randomly as in
LEACH and the round time for the selection is fixed. In
the E-LEACH, minimum spanning tree between CH is
created and CH which has largest residual energy is
selected as the root node. So, it considers the remaining
energy of the sensor nodes in order to balance network
loads and changes the round time depends on the
optimal cluster size. In this the CH sends the final data
to the sink node by the minimum spanning tree. Results
show that proposed protocol increases network lifetime
at least by 40% when compared with the LEACH
algorithm.
Fig 2 E-LEACH Architecture
VI. CELL-LEACH
In [6] author proposed CELL-LEACH protocol. In
this protocol, network area is divided into sections which
are called cells. Each seven near cells form a cluster.
Every cell has a cell-head which can communicate with
CHs directly. Cell-head is based upon residual energy.
Node having highest residual energy in cell is selected as
cell-head. And node having highest residual energy in
cluster is selected as CH. Each cell-head allocates a limit
of time on the basis of time division multiplexing to
sensor nodes which have shown interest to transfer data.
Sensor nodes of cell should transfer their data to the cell-
head in designated time. After receiving information
cell-head aggregate their cell information and remove
redundant information. Cell-head send aggregates data to
CH. After receiving data from cell-heads, CH aggregates
the data and sends to sink either directly or through other
CHs. To send data from CH to sink, CH keeps the
location information of other clusters in its table. By
using this table, shortest path is selected for sending data
from CH to sink. This method is also used for
transferring data from cell-head to cluster-head.
Simulation results show that cell-LEACH is better than
LEACH and LEACH-C protocol in terms of network
lifetime.
VII. ID-LEACH
In [7] author proposed ID-LEACH protocol where
the election of CH is same as LEACH protocol. This
protocol forms a tree with base station as root node and
cluster heads as its child nodes and so on. Every node
calculates its distance and degree from its parent node.
Root node generates the binary number of the length
multiple of distance a
nd degree. Base station assigns a unique ID with binary
number to each of sensor nodes. As base station knows
ID of each node so base station sends data in single path
rather than multiple path which save energy and
prolongs network life time.
VIII. VLEACH
In [8] author proposed VLEACH protocol. In this
protocol, cluster contains CH which is responsible for
sending data that is received from cluster members to the
COMPARISON OF ROUTING PROTOCOLS IN MOBILE WSN
sink node. When CH dies, vice-CH takes the
responsibility of CH of cluster. In LEACH, CH node
dies earlier than non-CH nodes in cluster because of its
operation of receiving, sending and overhearing. When
CH die, the cluster will become useless because data
gathered by non-CH nodes will never reach the sink
node. So, new CH need to elected. In VLEACH, vice-
CHs will become a CH of cluster whenever CH dies.
Because of this, non-CH nodes data will always reach to
sink node. And there is no need to elect new CH each
time CH dies. This will increase the network lifetime of
network. In VLEACH, the selection of CH is based upon
minimum distance, maximum residual energy and
minimum transmission energy. Non-CH node determines
its CH based on signal strength. Because greater the
signal strength means shorter the distance between them
and if distance is less, it takes less energy for
transmission of data. Simulation results show that
VLEACH increases network lifetime than LEACH
protocol.

3. Int. Journal of Electrical & Electronics Engg. Vol. 2, Spl. Issue 1 (2015) e-ISSN: 1694-2310 | p-ISSN: 1694-2426
NITTTR, Chandigarh EDIT -2015 176
IX. PROTOCOL COMPARISON
The papers surveyed have common objective which is
to increase the network lifetime. Protocols discussed in
above section are compared and presented in Table 1
X. CONCLUSION
In clustering routing protocols, network is divided
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Protocol
Characteristics
Data
Transmissi
on
CH
Energy Efficiency
Election
Selectio
n
[2] Single-hop
Probabilit
y
Signal
Strength
Good
[3] Single-hop
Probabilit
y
Signal
Strength
Good
[4] Single-hop
Energy
and
distance
Signal
Strength
Very Good
[5] Multi-hop
Energy
Signal
Strength
Very Good
[6] Single-hop
Energy
Signal
Strength
Good
[7] Single-hop
Probabilit
y
Signal
Strength
Good
[8] Single-hop
Energy
and
distance
Signal
Strength
Very Good
into a number of clusters. We can choose
different criteria for electing and selecting CHs in
the network which influence the network lifetime of
network. In this paper, we presented the various we
compared the various energy efficient routing protocol
of WSN.
[7] V.Tortzaban, S.Rahmani, M.Dehghan. “An ID Based
Routing Protocol for WSN,” IEEE,2009.
[8] A.Ahlawat, V.Malik, “An Extended Vice-Cluster Selection