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Improvement on LEACH-C Protocol for Wireless Sensor Network*

Zhen-Fu MA, Guang-Ming LI †

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School of Electrical, Mechanical and Information Engineering, Shandong University,

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Weihai, Shandong, China

†E-mail: gmli@sdu.edu.cn

Energy efficiency and lifetime are two vital issues in the research of WSN. The Low-
Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy(LEACH) and Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering
Hierarchy-centralized(LEACH-C) are classical algorithms where sensor nodes can be
divided into different clusters and transmit fuse data to Base Station(BS). This paper
proposes an improved algorithm based on LEACH-C, which balances energy
consumption in the way of changing the range of nodes that could participate in cluster
head selection. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can prolong network
lifetime effectively.
Keywords: Wireless Sensor Network; Protocol; Cluster Head; Energy Efficiency.

1. Introduction
Wireless sensor network (WSN) [1] consists of a large number of sensor nodes
that form a multi-hop Ad Hoc network by wireless communication. The
architecture of WSN is shown in Figure 1. Sensor nodes perceive information
from sensing field and send data to end users via Base Station (BS) and
communication network.
WSN is usually deployed in hazardous or dangerous conditions [2]. Sensor
nodes are powered by battery whose energy is limited. It is difficult to replace
energy resource for WSN. Hence reducing energy consumption to prolong
network lifetime is one of the most important design factors in WSN [3].
Traditional network has adequate energy supply, and their routing protocols
do not take characteristics of wireless sensor networks into account. Therefore,
they are not suitable for WSN [4]. Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy
(LEACH) [5] that employs the technique of clustering nodes in WSN has been
proposed. In LEACH, sensor nodes self-organize into clusters and each cluster
selects a cluster head. Cluster heads receive data form nodes within cluster and

*
This research is supported by the Key Research and Development Plan of Shandong Province,
Grant No. 2015GSF120003, and WEIHAI Science and Technology Development Plan.

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send fusion data to BS. Compared to plane routing protocols and static
clustering routing protocols, LEACH can prolong network lifetime by 15% [6].
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Fig. 1 Architecture of WSN.

LEACH-centralized (LEACH-C) [7], in which clustering and selection of

cluster head are operated by BS, is an improved version of LEACH. As
LEACH-C saves the intercommunication energy among nodes when clustering,
LEACH-C performs better than LEACH.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In section 2, LEACH
protocol and LEACH-C protocol are introduced briefly. Section 3 presents the
proposed protocol based on LEACH-C. Section 4 describes the simulation
results and section 5 concludes this paper.

2. LEACH and LEACH-C

2.1. LEACH
LEACH is the first dynamically clustering protocol, and the construction of
cluster is executed circularly. Every round can be divided into two phases: set-
up phase and ready phase [8]. In order to reduce the overhead of LEACH
protocol, the duration of ready phase should be set longer than that of set-up
phase.
In set-up phase, sensor nodes decide whether to be cluster head according to
a certain probability independently. Every sensor node generates a random value
between 0 to 1. If the value is less than threshold T ( n ) , sensor node will select
itself as a cluster head. T (n) is calculated as follows:

(1)

where p is the desired percentage of cluster head; r is the current round

number; G is the set of nodes that have not been cluster head in last 1 / p
rounds.

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After cluster heads confirmed, they will broadcast a packet to all nodes in
the sensing field. And sensor nodes decide to join in which cluster according to
the signal strength of received information. Then cluster heads adopt TDMA
sequence to distribute time slot for nodes within cluster.
In ready phase, sensor nodes collect information from sensing field and
transmit it to their cluster heads in allocated schedule. Cluster heads aggregate
information and then send it to BS. After a period of time, the network will turn
to next round.
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As a classic routing protocol, LEACH suffers from some drawbacks, such

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as:
(1)The selection of cluster head is completely random.
(2)The number of cluster head is not fixed and optimal.
(3)Intercommunication among nodes consumes large amounts of energy in set
up phase.

2.2. LEACH-C
LEACH-C is a centralized routing protocol. In the start of each round, all nodes
will send their location and residual energy level to BS. BS can calculate the
average energy level of all nodes. When the energy of nodes is more than the
average value, they can be candidates of cluster head. BS adopts annealing
algorithm to establish clusters, and then sends clustering information to the
network. Compared with LEACH, LEACH-C has several advantages[9]. For
example, it is more energy efficient. In LEACH-C, BS can establish more
reasonable clusters whose energy is more efficient, and there is no energy
consumption among nodes when establishing clusters.

3. Proposed Solution

3.1. Problem statement

In LEACH, cluster heads are selected randomly. LEACH-C protocol sets a
restriction for the nodes that can participate in cluster head selection. And the
restriction is that the energy of these nodes should be more than average value.
However, the effects of this measure is limited. We assume there are five nodes
with low energy level in sensing field as shown in Figure 2. E is the average
avg

energy level of network and E is the energy cost of cluster head in every round.
c

If E  E and E  E , there is a high probability that node A will die after this
A avg A c

round if it is selected as cluster head.

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EF
ED
EA
EC
EB

Fig. 2 Problem statement.

3.2. Proposed solution

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In order to balance energy distribution of network, we propose a modification to

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cluster head selection based on LEACH-C. In the proposed scheme, we redefine

the range of nodes which can participate in cluster head selection according to
residual energy. Nodes, denoted G , have chance to be cluster heads, when the
difference between their energy and average value meet certain conditions.
Accordingly, the improved algorithm consists of following steps:
(1)BS computes the average energy per node.
(2)BS chooses nodes which have chance to be cluster heads according to Eq. (2),
(2)

where Enode _ avg _ egy is the average energy in current round; E is the
last _ avg

average energy in last round; n is an integer that will be confirmed by

simulation.
(3)Set and count the number( k ) of node whose energy level
meets the condition above. If , BS will reset G like LEACH-C.
k  kopt
is the number of cluster head.
kopt

4. Simulation and Analysis

In Eq.(2), n is a key variable needed to be addressed. If n is too small, the
number of nodes which meet the requirement will be too large, then the effect of
proposed scheme will be unobvious. If n is too large, there will be not enough
nodes to meet the requirement and the proposed scheme will be the same as that
in LEACH-C. This paper confirms the value of n by simulation. Simulation
parameters are listed in Table 1.

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Table 1. Simulation parameters settings

Parameter Name Parameter Value

Number of node 100
Initial energy 4J
Simulation area 1000·1000m2
Channel bandwidth 1MB/s
Packet size 100bytes
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kopt 5
Figure 3 shows the optimum value of n is around 4~38 for this network. In
this paper, we set n to 10.
Figure 4 shows the number of node alive in different protocols. In the
proposed scheme, the death time of the first node is later than that in LEACH
and LEACH-C. The proposed scheme can balance energy distribution and
prolong network lifetime.

80

76

0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40

Fig. 3 Round of first node death as the value of n .

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100

50
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LEACH
LEACH-C
Proposed
0
500 1000
Fig. 4 A comparison of node alive of different protocols.

In order to prove the correctness of analysis, we compute the variance of

residual energy in different protocols. As shown in Figure 5, the variance in
proposed scheme is less than that in LEACH-C. The proposed scheme can make
energy distribute more evenly.
3.0
LEACH-C
Proposed
2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
650 700 750 800 850

Fig. 5 Energy variance in different protocols.

5. Conclusion
Energy efficiency is an important issue for WSN. This paper introduces two
classic clustering protocols, LEACH and LEACH-C, and proposes an improved

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algorithm of cluster head selection based on LEACH-C. The proposed scheme

determines the range of cluster head candidates according to residual energy.
Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can balance energy
distribution and extend network lifetime.

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