ACE: An Emergent Algorithm for Highly Uniform Cluster Formation

Abstract

Abstract. The efficient subdivision of a sensor network into uniform, mostly non-overlapping clusters of physically close nodes is an important building block in the design of efficient upper layer network functions such as routing, broadcast, data aggregation, and query processing. We present ACE, an algorithm that results in highly uniform cluster formation that can achieve a packing efficiency close to hexagonal close-packing. By using the self-organizing properties of three rounds of feedback between nodes, the algorithm induces the emergent formation of clusters that are an efficient cover of the network, with significantly less overlap than the clusters formed by existing algorithms. The algorithm is scale-independent -it completes in time proportional to the deployment density of the nodes regardless of the overall number of nodes in the network. ACE requires no knowledge of geographic location and requires only a small constant amount of communications overhead.

Energy Efficient Clustering Techniques for Wireless Sensor Networks-A Review

“…The entire network is now more robust and easy to maintain as these changes only need to be identified and managed within the individual cluster and not in the entire network. For the above reasoning, several efficient clustering algorithms have been proposed for WSNs [14][15][16][17][18][19].…”

Comparative Analysis of Clustering Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

“…A quite valuable alternative approach was given in [29].Unlike other distributed clustering schemes, ACE employs an emergent algorithm. Emergent algorithms much like artificial neural networks evolve to optimal solution through a mix of local optimization steps.…”

Self Organizing Sensor Networks Using Intelligent Clustering

“…By introducing the conventional clustering approach to the sensor networks provides a unique challenge due to the fact that cluster-heads, which are communication centers by default, tend to be heavily utilized and thus drained of their battery power rapidly. Algorithm for Cluster Establishment (ACE) [2] clusters the sensor network within a constant number of iterations using the node degree as the main parameter. Some of the weaknesses of ACE are: First, ACE randomly selects candi-date node in each iteration which creates different results each time on the same sensor network.…”

“…Minimization of the number of cluster heads in a wireless sensor network is a very important problem to reduce channel contention and to improve the efficiency of the algorithm when executed at the level of cluster-heads. This paper proposes a Self Organizing Sensor (SOS) network based on an intelligent clustering algorithm which does not require many user defined parameters and random selection to form clusters like in Algorithm for Cluster Establishment (ACE) [2]. The proposed SOS algorithm is compared with ACE and the empirical results clearly illustrate that the SOS algorithm can reduce the number of cluster heads.…”