Presenting an optimal algorithm based on firefly algorithm with specific parameters to select the cluster head in wireless sensor networks in order to reduce energy consumption

Wireless sensor networks have multiple nodes with properties such as being small, low cost and limited energy which are used to collect information from their environment. Methods which attempt to collect data within cluster heads and send them through the cluster head to the base station by performing clustering and selecting the cluster head, are addressed as one of the most efficient methods to reduce energy consumption in such networks. In methods where clustering is applied, the energy reduction occurs fasters than usual nodes due to higher activity of cluster heads, namely collecting data from usual nodes and then sending them to the base station. The early death of nodes would lead to reduction of coverage in the network, so it would decrease the sensor network’s lifetime. For the first time, the LEACH algorithm has increased the lifetime of these networks by using routing and clustering among wireless sensor network’s nodes. Since the energy consumption optimization problem in wireless sensor network is a NP-Hard problem and there is not any deterministic solution for such problems, we could attempt to improve the results by proposing more optimal algorithms. The firefly algorithm is a nature inspired algorithm. In this paper, an optimized firefly algorithm is proposed with specific parameters to improve searching and increase the precision in searching which would have more optimized results over the previous algorithms. The simulation results show that this algorithm reduces energy consumption and increase the coverage in these networks compared with competing methods.