Adaptive Dual-Transmit Energy Mechanism for Lifetime Optimization in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Simulation Study

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks are constrained by limited node energy, making energy-efficient routing protocols essential for extending network lifetime. This paper presents an Adaptive Dual-Transmit Enhanced LEACH protocol that dynamically adjusts intra-cluster transmission amplification factors based on per-round cluster geometry. The approach addresses the fixed amplification factor used in Enhanced LEACH by computing an adaptive intra-cluster distance threshold from the mean member-to-cluster-head distance and deriving a dynamic amplification reduction factor that increases as clusters become more compact. This enables greater energy savings when network conditions permit. Performance was evaluated through thirty-trial Monte Carlo simulations on a 100-node, 200 × 200 m network. The adaptive mechanism reduced the effective free-space amplification coefficient by 62.97% and achieved cumulative intra-cluster energy savings of 5.589 J. Statistical analysis showed significant improvements over the base protocol, including increases of 8.8% in First Node Death, 2.9% in Last Node Death, 1.5% in throughput, and 1.5% in energy efficiency (212.47 versus 209.28 packets/J). Scalability analysis for network sizes ranging from 50 to 200 nodes further confirmed that the proposed approach introduced no scalability penalties while providing progressively greater benefits at higher node densities. The results indicate that adaptive transmission amplification can enhance network lifetime and energy utilisation without materially increasing protocol complexity, since the adaptive computation adds only a constant-time, per-round arithmetic step to the existing clustering procedure.