An optimal communication in WSN enabled by fuzzy clustering and improved meta-heuristic model

Purpose Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have been widely adopted for various applications due to their properties of pervasive computing. It is necessary to prolong the WSN lifetime; it avails its benefit for a long time. WSN lifetime may vary according to the applications, and in most cases, it is considered as the time to the death of the first node in the module. Clustering has been one of the successful strategies for increasing the effectiveness of the network, as it selects the appropriate cluster head (CH) for communication. However, most clustering protocols are based on probabilistic schemes, which may create two CH for a single cluster group, leading to cause more energy consumption. Hence, it is necessary to build up a clustering strategy with the improved properties for the CH selection. The purpose of this paper is to provide better convergence for large simulation space and to use it for optimizing the communication path of WSN. Design/methodology/approach This paper plans to develop a new clustering protocol in WSN using fuzzy clustering and an improved meta-heuristic algorithm. The fuzzy clustering approach is adopted for performing the clustering of nodes with respective fuzzy centroid by using the input constraints such as signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), load and residual energy, between the CHs and nodes. After the cluster formation, the combined utility function is used to refine the CH selection. The CH is determined based on computing the combined utility function, in which the node attaining the maximum combined utility function is selected as the CH. After the clustering and CH formation, the optimal communication between the CH and the nodes is induced by a new meta-heuristic algorithm called Fitness updated Crow Search Algorithm (FU-CSA). This optimal communication is accomplished by concerning a multi-objective function with constraints with residual energy and the distance between the nodes. Finally, the simulation results show that the proposed technique enhances the network lifetime and energy efficiency when compared to the state-of-the-art techniques. Findings The proposed Fuzzy+FU-CSA algorithm has achieved low-cost function values of 48% to Fuzzy+Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), 60% to Fuzzy+Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO), 40% to Fuzzy+Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) and 25% to Fuzzy+CSA, respectively. Thus, the results prove that the proposed Fuzzy+FU-CSA has the optimal performance than the other algorithms, and thus provides a high network lifetime and energy. Originality/value For the efficient clustering and the CH selection, a combined utility function was developed by using the network parameters such as energy, load, SINR and distance. The fuzzy clustering uses the constraint inputs such as residual energy, load and SINR for clustering the nodes of WSN. This work had developed an FU-CSA algorithm for the selection of the optimal communication path for the WSN.