A Heuristic Angular Clustering Framework for Secured Statistical Data Aggregation in Sensor Networks

Clustering in wireless sensor networks plays a vital role in solving energy and scalability issues. Although multiple deployment structures and cluster shapes have been implemented, they sometimes fail to produce the expected outcomes owing to different geographical area shapes. This paper proposes a clustering algorithm with a complex deployment structure called radial-shaped clustering (RSC). The deployment structure is divided into multiple virtual concentric rings, and each ring is further divided into sectors called clusters. The node closest to the midpoint of each sector is selected as the cluster head. Each sector's data are aggregated and forwarded to the sink node through angular inclination routing. We experimented and compared the proposed RSC performance against that of the existing fan-shaped clustering algorithm. Experimental results reveal that RSC outperforms the existing algorithm in scalability and network lifetime for large-scale sensor deployments.