Firefly Algorithm Solution to Improving Threshold Distributed Energy Efficient Clustering Algorithm for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

The improvement of the lifetime of heterogeneous wireless sensor networks is a challenge for many researches. One of the most important protocols to achieve this goal is to divide the network into clusters that run by a single node called cluster head and the others have attached. However, all nodes must form the cluster including the nearest nodes to the base station which should be excluded from the clustering process. Furthermore these nodes consume more energy since each member node communicates directly with their cluster head and not with the base station. To eliminate these notes from cluster process, we need to formulate a new energy total of the network which depends on the number of these nodes. In this paper we propose a new technic to optimize this energy which basing on the firefly algorithm. The developed approach allows the boundary of the excluded nodes efficiently. Computer simulation in MATLAB proves the superiority of this method concerning the increase of the lifetime and the number of the received packet messages compared to the others protocols