A Whale Swarm-Based Energy Efficient Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Developing energy-efficient routing algorithms is key to reducing energy consumption of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), and the WSNs energy-efficient routing is a combinatorial optimization problem. Many researchers try to optimize it with meta-heuristics. However, most meta-heuristics are inappropriate in designing routing algorithms for WSNs, due to the individual coding and iteration rule for WSNs routing problem. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a Whale Swarm Algorithm with Iterative Counter-based Routing (WSA-ICR) algorithm based on the WSA-IC algorithm. The WSA-ICR algorithm considers the energy consumption of each node and path length in the balanced network and designs a new energy efficiency objective function. Then, the WSA algorithm is improved from five aspects: individual coding, individual initialization, distance calculation between two individuals, individual movement rules and local search. The WSA-ICR algorithm is compared with several energy efficiency optimization routing algorithms. The simulation results show that the WSA-ICR algorithm has excellent performance in balancing the energy consumption of the whole network, prolonging the network life cycle and convergence speed.