A new energy-efficient clustering protocol for wireless sensor networks based on Network Function Virtualisation (NFV)

In wireless sensor networks, minimising energy consumption is the most important challenge that should be considered in their design. Routing consumes a considerable amount of energy in the communication to perform various functions such as clustering and neighbourhood discovery; therefore reducing the number of communications should be one of the objectives in the design of energy-efficient protocols. In this paper, a new virtualised clustering routing protocol, based on the Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy Protocol (LEACH) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) techniques, was developed and analysed to improve the energy efficiency of the network and maximise the network’s lifetime. To calculate the amount of consumed energy for each node in the network, an analytical model was developed to be used by a cloud-based server to estimate the energy that will be consumed in the proposed protocol. Analysis using the developed model showed that the new protocol could achieve an improvement in the network lifetime by reducing the number of communication messages and thus will minimise the sensor nodes’ energy consumption compared with the conventional LEACH protocol