Fuzzy C-Means based Clustering Algorithm in WSNs for IoT Applications

Energy efficiency in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN)-based Internet of Things (IoT) systems is a very challenging issue since IoT is becoming more complex due to its large scale deployment. Cluster-based hierarchical routing protocols are used as a very effective tool to forward data among nodes in energy constrained networks. In this paper, we propose a new Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) based clustering algorithm for WSN-based IoT applications. The algorithm considers an FCM approach to form the clusters and the minimization of the overall consumed energy in each cluster to select the optimal Cluster Head (CH) in each transmission round. A comparison with Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocol is presented to analyze the performance and to validate the proposed algorithm. Results show that the proposed FCM method improves the network lifetime by enhancing the residual energy by 50%.