An Energy-Efficient Node-Clustering Algorithm in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been widely used in many fields, including military, environmental, home and other commercial applications. A WSN is made up of a large number of sensor nodes which sense data and submit them to the sink node. One of the critical challenges in building such a network is the limited lifetime of the batteries in the sensor nodes. Many proposed algorithms have been published to overcome this problem. This study reviews some of these proposed algorithms involving a node-clustering scheme. The node-clustering algorithm with its terminology and attributes is also explained. In addition, the concept of Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks (HWSNs) is explained in detail. Finally, a review and comparison of various energy-efficient clustering algorithms for HWSNs is presented.