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Energy-Efficient Communication Protocol for Wireless Microsensor Networks
Wendi Rabiner Heinzelman, Anantha Chandrakasan, and Hari Balakrishnan
 Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyCambridge, MA 02139
f 
wendi, anantha, hari
g 
@mit.edu
Abstract
Wireless distributed microsensor systems will enable thereliable monitoring of a variety of environments for bothcivil and military applications. In this paper, we look at communication protocols, which can have significant im- pact on the overall energy dissipation of these networks. Based on our findings that the conventional protocols of direct transmission, minimum-transmission-energy, multi-hop routing, and static clustering may not be optimal for sensor networks, we propose LEACH (Low-Energy Adap-tive Clustering Hierarchy), a clustering-based protocol that utilizes randomized rotation of local cluster base stations(cluster-heads) to evenly distribute the energy load amongthe sensors in the network. LEACH uses localized coordi-nationto enablescalability and robustness for dynamicnet-works, and incorporates data fusion into the routing proto-col to reduce the amount of information that must be trans-mitted to the base station. Simulations show that LEACH can achieve as much as a factor of 8 reduction in energydissipation compared with conventional routing protocols. In addition, LEACH is able to distribute energy dissipationevenly throughout the sensors, doubling the useful systemlifetime for the networks we simulated.
1. Introduction
Recent advances in MEMS-based sensor technology,low-power analog and digital electronics, and low-powerRF design have enabled the development of relatively in-expensive and low-power wireless microsensors [2, 3, 4].These sensors are not as reliable or as accurate as their ex-pensive macrosensor counterparts, but their size and costenable applications to network hundreds or thousands of these microsensors in order to achieve high quality, fault-tolerant sensing networks. Reliable environment monitor-ing is important in a variety of commercial and militaryapplications. For example, for a security system, acoustic,seismic, and video sensors can be used to form an ad hocnetwork to detect intrusions. Microsensors can also be usedto monitor machines for fault detection and diagnosis.Microsensor networks can contain hundreds or thou-sands of sensing nodes. It is desirable to make these nodesas cheap and energy-efficient as possible and rely on theirlarge numbers to obtain high quality results. Network pro-tocols must be designed to achieve fault tolerance in thepresence of individual node failure while minimizing en-ergy consumption. In addition, since the limited wirelesschannel bandwidth must be shared among all the sensorsin the network, routing protocols for these networks shouldbe able to perform local collaboration to reduce bandwidthrequirements.Eventually,the databeing sensedby the nodesin the net-work must be transmitted to a control center or base station,wheretheend-usercanaccessthedata. Therearemanypos-sible models for these microsensor networks. In this work,we consider microsensor networks where:
 
The base station is fixed and located far from the sen-sors.
 
Allnodesinthenetworkarehomogeneousandenergy-constrained.Thus, communication between the sensor nodes and thebase station is expensive, and there are no “high-energy”nodes through which communication can proceed. This isthe framework for MIT’s
 
-AMPS project, which focuseson innovativeenergy-optimizedsolutions at all levels of thesystem hierarchy, from the physical layer and communica-tion protocols up to the application layer and efficient DSPdesign for microsensor nodes.Sensor networks contain too much data for an end-userto process. Therefore, automated methods of combining or
aggregating
the datainto a small set of meaningfulinforma-tion is required [7, 8]. In addition to helping avoid informa-tion overload, data aggregation, also known as
data fusion
,can combine several unreliable data measurements to pro-duce a more accurate signal by enhancing the common sig-nal and reducing the uncorrelated noise. The classification
Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 20000-7695-0493-0/00 $10.00 (c) 2000 IEEE1
 
performed on the aggregated data might be performed by ahuman operator or automatically. Both the method of per-forming data aggregation and the classification algorithmare application-specific. For example, acoustic signals areoften combined using a
beamforming
algorithm [5, 17] toreduce several signals into a single signal that contains therelevant information of all the individual signals. Large en-ergy gains can be achieved by performingthe data fusion orclassification algorithmlocally, therebyrequiringmuch lessdata to be transmitted to the base station.By analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of con-ventional routing protocols using our model of sensor net-works, we have developed LEACH (Low-Energy AdaptiveClusteringHierarchy),a clustering-basedprotocolthat min-imizes energy dissipation in sensor networks. The key fea-tures of LEACH are:
 
Localized coordination and control for cluster set-upand operation.
 
Randomized rotation of the cluster “base stations” or“cluster-heads” and the corresponding clusters.
 
Local compression to reduce global communication.The use of clusters for transmitting data to the base sta-tion leverages the advantages of small transmit distancesfor most nodes, requiring only a few nodes to transmitfar distances to the base station. However, LEACH out-performs classical clustering algorithms by using adaptiveclusters and rotating cluster-heads, allowing the energy re-quirements of the system to be distributed among all thesensors. In addition, LEACH is able to perform local com-putation in each cluster to reduce the amount of data thatmustbetransmittedtothebasestation. Thisachievesalargereduction in the energy dissipation, as computation is muchcheaper than communication.
2. First Order Radio Model
Currently, there is a great deal of research in the area of low-energy radios. Different assumptions about the radiocharacteristics, including energy dissipation in the transmitand receive modes, will change the advantages of differentprotocols. In our work, we assume a simple model wherethe radio dissipates
E 
elec 
=50 
nJ/bit to run the transmit-ter or receiver circuitry and
 
amp 
=100 
pJ/bit/m
2 
for thetransmitamplifierto achievean acceptable
E 
b 
N 
o 
(see Figure1and Table 1). These parameters are slightly better than thecurrent state-of-the-art in radio design
1 
. We also assume an
r 
2 
energy loss due to channel transmission. Thus, to trans-mit a
k 
-bit message a distance
d 
using our radio model, the
1 
For example, the Bluetooth initiative [1]specifies 700 Kbpsradios thatoperate at 2.7 V and 30 mA, or 115 nJ/bit.
TransmitElectronicsTx AmplifierReceiveElectronicsE
elec
* k k bit packet
ε
amp
* k * d
2
E
elec
* k dk bit packetE
Tx
(d)E
Rx
Figure 1. First order radio model.Table 1. Radio characteristics.
Operation Energy DissipatedTransmitter Electronics (
E 
Tx 
, 
elec 
)Receiver Electronics (
E 
Rx 
, 
elec 
) 50 nJ/bit(
E 
Tx 
, 
elec 
= 
E 
Rx 
, 
elec 
= 
E 
elec 
)Transmit Amplifier (
 
amp 
) 100 pJ/bit/m
2 
radio expends:
E 
Tx 
 
k;d 
= 
E 
Tx 
, 
elec 
 
k 
+ 
E 
Tx 
, 
amp 
 
k;d 
 
E 
Tx 
 
k;d 
= 
E 
elec 
 
k 
+ 
 
amp 
 
k 
 
d 
2 
(1)and to receive this message, the radio expends:
E 
Rx 
 
k 
= 
E 
Rx 
, 
elec 
 
k 
 
E 
Rx 
 
k 
= 
E 
elec 
 
k 
(2)Forthese parametervalues, receivinga messageis not a lowcostoperation;theprotocolsshouldthustrytominimizenotonly the transmit distances but also the number of transmitand receive operations for each message.We make the assumption that the radio channel is sym-metric such that the energy required to transmit a messagefrom node A to node B is the same as the energy requiredto transmit a message from node B to node A for a givenSNR. For our experiments, we also assume that all sensorsare sensing the environment at a fixed rate and thus alwayshave data to send to the end-user. For future versions of ourprotocol, we will implement an ”event-driven” simulation,wheresensors onlytransmit data if some eventoccurs in theenvironment.
Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 20000-7695-0493-0/00 $10.00 (c) 2000 IEEE2
 
3. Energy Analysis of Routing Protocols
There have been several network routing protocols pro-posed for wireless networks that can be examined in thecontext of wireless sensor networks. We examine two suchprotocols, namely direct communication with the base sta-tion and minimum-energymulti-hop routing using our sen-sor network and radio models. In addition, we discuss aconventional clustering approach to routing and the draw-backs of using such an approach when the nodes are allenergy-constrained.Using a direct communication protocol, each sensorsends its data directly to the base station. If the base sta-tion is far away from the nodes, direct communication willrequire a large amount of transmit power from each node(since
d 
in Equation 1 is large). This will quickly drain thebattery of the nodes and reduce the system lifetime. How-ever, the only receptions in this protocol occur at the basestation, so if either the base station is close to the nodes, orthe energy required to receive data is large, this may be anacceptable (and possibly optimal) method of communica-tion.The second conventional approach we consider is a“minimum-energy” routing protocol. There are severalpower-awareroutingprotocolsdiscussedinthe literature[6,9, 10, 14, 15]. In these protocols, nodes route data des-tined ultimately for the base station through intermediatenodes. Thus nodes act as routers for other nodes’ data inaddition to sensing the environment. These protocols dif-fer in the way the routes are chosen. Some of these proto-cols [6, 10, 14], only consider the energy of the transmitterand neglect the energy dissipation of the receivers in de-termining the routes. In this case, the intermediate nodesare chosen such that the transmit amplifier energy (e.g.,
E 
Tx 
, 
amp 
 
k;d 
= 
 
amp 
 
k 
 
d 
2 
) is minimized; thus nodeA would transmit to node C through node B if and only if:
E 
Tx 
, 
amp 
 
k;d 
= 
d 
AB 
+ 
E 
Tx 
, 
amp 
 
k;d 
= 
d 
BC 
 
E 
Tx 
, 
amp 
 
k;d 
= 
d 
AC 
 
(3)or
d 
2 
AB 
+ 
d 
2 
BC 
d 
2 
AC 
(4)However, for this minimum-transmission-energy (MTE)routing protocol, rather than just one (high-energy) trans-mit of the data, each data message must go through
n 
(low-energy) transmits and
n 
receives. Depending on the rela-tive costs of the transmit amplifier and the radio electronics,the total energy expended in the system might actually begreater using MTE routing than direct transmission to thebase station.To illustrate this point, consider the linear network shown in Figure 2, where the distance between the nodesis
r 
. If we consider the energy expended transmitting a sin-gle
k 
-bit message from a node located a distance
nr 
from
BaseStationrn nodes
Figure 2. Simple linear network.
the base station using the direct communication approachand Equations 1 and 2, we have:
E 
direct 
= 
E 
Tx 
 
k;d 
= 
n 
 
r 
 = 
E 
elec 
 
k 
+ 
 
amp 
 
k 
 
 
nr 
 
2 
= 
k 
 
E 
elec 
+ 
 
amp 
n 
2 
r 
2 
 
(5)In MTE routing, each node sends a message to the closestnodeon the way to the base station. Thus the node located adistance
nr 
from the base station would require
n 
transmitsa distance
r 
and
n 
, 
1 
receives.
E 
MTE 
= 
n 
 
E 
Tx 
 
k;d 
= 
r 
+ 
n 
, 
1 
 
E 
Rx 
 
k 
 = 
n 
 
E 
elec 
 
k 
+ 
 
amp 
 
k 
 
r 
2 
+ 
n 
, 
1 
 
E 
elec 
 
k 
= 
k 
2 
n 
, 
1 
E 
elec 
+ 
 
amp 
nr 
2 
 
(6)Therefore, direct communication requires
less
energy thanMTE routing if:
E 
direct 
E 
MTE 
E 
elec 
+ 
 
amp 
n 
2 
r 
2 
 
2 
n 
, 
1 
E 
elec 
+ 
 
amp 
nr 
2 
E 
elec 
 
amp 
 r 
2 
n 
2 
(7)Using Equations1 - 6 and the random100-nodenetwork shown in Figure 3, we simulated transmission of data fromevery node to the base station (located 100 m from the clos-estsensornode,at(x=0,y=-100))usingMATLAB.Figure4shows the total energy expended in the system as the net-work diameter increases from 10 m
 
10 m to 100 m
 
100m and the energy expended in the radio electronics (i.e.,
E 
elec 
) increases from 10 nJ/bit to 100 nJ/bit, for the sce-nario where each node has a 2000-bit data packet to send tothe base station. This shows that, as predicted by our anal-ysis above, when transmission energy is on the same orderas receive energy,which occurs when transmission distanceis short and/or the radio electronics energy is high, directtransmission is more energy-efficient on a global scale thanMTE routing. Thus the most energy-efficient protocol touse depends on the network topology and radio parametersof the system.
Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 20000-7695-0493-0/00 $10.00 (c) 2000 IEEE3
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