Research on the Routing Protocol in Wireless
Sensor Networks Based on Genetic Algorithm
Gang Xin
Information Engineering Department
Jilin Business and Technology College
Changchun,Jilin,China
Abstract—Regardless of the traditional network, or wireless
sensor networks, routing algorithms is the key support for
network transmission technology.This paper focuses on the
combination of GA and WSN routing algorithm, and analyzes
the problem about hierarchy routing algorithm based on
GA.Thus, this paper improves hierarchy routing algorithm
using GA.The experiment result show that the performance of
two phases GA using really nodes is better than the previous
hierarchy routing algorithm based on GA.Meanwhile,the
algorithm in this paper can save power,and enhance network
life cycle which meets the precedent power requirement of
wireless sensor networks routing agreement.
Keywords-wireless sensor networks; genetic algorithm;
hierarchy routing algorithm; relay node
With the rapid development of information society,the
communication technology,embedded computing technology
and sensor technology become gradually mature.According
to the development and combination of these
technologies,people manufacture wireless sensor
networks(WSN) with the ability of handling apperceivingˈ
calculating and communicating. The WSN focuses on the
data and mainly gains and collects information under the
environment which the human being couldn't approach to.
So the sensor node energy source is unable to be
changed.Thus, currently it has been the core issue for WSN
to design effective strategy to lengthen the network
lifecycle.Meanwhile, there are new technology challenges in
the research field of sensor network, such as limited sensor
network width, sensor node's not strong ability to handle and
transfer data, big possibility of node invalidation and features
and limitation of rapid change in network topology.
I.WSN ROUTING AGREEMENT
The most important part of WSN research is the routing
agreement. Its main function is to direct the groups to the
right destination node through communication subnet.
According to the manner of topology structure, WSN routing
agreement can be classified into plane model routing
agreement and grade routing agreement. Compared with
plane model routing agreement, hierarchical routing
agreement has some main advantages such as there is no
978-1-4577-0536-6/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
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need of routing information maintenance due to the simple
node function, cluster topology structure is in favor of
distributed algorithm and easy to manage, network delay
caused by the large amount of nodes through which the
monolayer network transmission route goes is reduced and
the data transmission amount is reduced and power wastage
is decreased in the result of cluster data fusion. The main
agreements of hierarchical routing agreement include
LEACH [1], TEEN [2], APTEEN [3], PEGASIS [4] and so
on. This paper employs the LEACH agreement.
Leach’s full name is Low Energy Adaptive Clustering
Hierarchy. This agreement employs the way of equiprobable
random circle choice of cluster and puts forward the concept
of 'ring' so that it can distribute the energy load made during
the data transmission averagely to each sensor node in the
network. Through the sensor node in the network, it shares
the relay communication operation and thus the energy
wastage is reduced and the network lifecycle is
lengthened.Therefore, it also makes data fusion at cluster
nodes to reduce the communication traffic.
But there are still some disadvantages of the LEACH
agreement. The nodes which locate far away from the Sink
nodes waste energy fast because of large communication
distance so that the node death is quickened up. This
agreement requires the sensor nodes to have a large
communication power, thus it has a weak expansibility and
is not suitable for large-scale network. The LEACH
agreement will elect clusters frequently, which will cause
energy wastage of nodes.
II.GENETIC ALGORITHM APPLICATIONS IN WSN ROUTING
ALGORITHM
In the early 1960s,professor J.H.Hollnad,who teaches in
Michigan university in America, put forward the genetic
algorithm using the basic thought of Darwin's theory of
evolution and Mendel's genetics. The genetic algorithm has a
low requirement for majorized function and it doesn't rely on
specific problem field either. Also it has a strong robustness
to different kinds of problems. So it is applied widely in the
field of engineering, computer science, social science and so
on. For example,Jin[6] employs the genetic algorithm to
optimize the energy of WSN.
 In many WSN communication model,the communication
radius between sensor nodes is big.Single nodes in the
network can all communicate with Sink nodes directly.This
kind of communication model is able to assure good data
communication among the whole network.But it needs to
pay a high price for this.In the LEACH agreement,it
prescribes that the communication energy wastage should be
in direct ratio to the square of distance of nodes in a certain
distance.When the nodes' distance is more than a certain
numerical value,communication energy wastage will be in
direct ratio to the biquadratic of distance of nodes.So nodes
which locate much more far away from the Sink nodes will
waste more energy during communicating.If there is much
nodes communication energy wastage,the energy of nodes
will be waste up so that the nodes will die.Overfull nodes
death will lead to the result of shortening network life.With
the fall of network capability,it is likely to have undesirable
influence to the application of some certain fields.
Based on this problem,this paper not only puts forward
the idea of remaining the application model of genetic
algorithm in the hierarchy routing algorithm but also chooses
appropriate waypoint for the nodes which are far away from
the Sink nodes.Thus the waypoint will transmit the data so as
to reach the goal of economizing energy wastage and
lengthening network lifecycle.This paper will employ two
stages of the genetic algorithm.The main work for the first
stage is to divide the clusters.A cluster head will be chosen
from each cluster.The main work for the second stage is to
choose waypoints for each cluster head.When the cluster is
far away from the Sink node in an appropriate distance,data
will be transmitted to the Sink node without taking the way
through the waypoints.The algorithm flow is as shown in
Figure 1:
Figure 1. Flow Chart
 III.MODEL EXPERIMENT
A.Division Stages of Clusters
The main goal of the first stage of genetic algorithm is to
divide the nodes in WSN into several clusters and to choose
a cluster head from each cluster.Then the client node in the
cluster will transmit the data it apperceived to the cluster
head node and make data fusion through the cluster head
node.Data fusion is aimed at reducing data transmission
quantity.
Genetic algorithm in this stage applies the manner of
{0,1} coding.0 stands for client nodes in the cluster and 1 for
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cluster head nodes.In the growth stage of the initial
population,some cluster heads will be created randomly
according to a certain proportion.Other nodes will decide the
cluster to which it will belong according to the distance.
To figure the sensor network which has a node amount of
n as a numeric string with a length of n.Each gene position in
the string is corresponding to a node.0 stands for noncluster
head node and 1 stands for cluster head node.The successive
carry in the string is corresponding to the nodes' natural
number in the network.As it shown in Figure 2,it is a sensor
network with 12 nodes.It can be coded as 000010000010.
B. Waypoint Choosing Stage
After the first stage of dividing clusters,choose nodes
which have appropriate location from the cluster head nodes
to transmit data for distal cluster head nodes.Cluster head
nodes which is much closer to the Sink node can directly
transmit data to the Sink node.
Genetic algorithm of this stage employs the manner of
real number coding.According to the known geographic
information,choose some possible waypoints for each cluster
head node.The standard is as follows:the waypoint should be
much closer to the Sink node than this cluster head and two
different cluster head nodes is not far from each
other.Through this manner of choosing,each cluster head
node may gain an address list.Pick the target nodes in each
cluster head node's address list to correspond to the number
in the list as coded value when coding.As the cluster head
nodes which is nearer to the base station directly transmit
data to Sink nodes,the coded value is set up for 0.In Figure
3,cluster head nodes use arrowhead manner to express the
address list.The real line arrowhead expresses nodes we
have chosen in fact.
Figure 2. Coding Sketch Map Figure 3. Network Sketch Map
This paper will choose 100*100 area among random and
different scaled network of grid manner construction and
employ these networks to validate the capability of
algorithm.This paper will produce sensor node coordinate
randomly by the program.The minimum node coordinate in
the network is (0,0) and the maximum is (100,100) without
appearance of repeated nodes.And the algorithm in this
paper will also do model experiment among grid WSN.The
distance between nodes in the grid monitor region is a fixed
value.Nodes in the network form the grid and assure that the
coordinate of x-axis or y-axis differs for 10.In this paper,we influence to the network lifecycle made by the
will employ model of communication energy wastage from algorithm.The experiment randomly creates 100 nodes as
the LEACH agreement during the experiment.The formula nodes in the network.Among them,the coordinate of Sink
is as follows: node is (50,175).Do model experiment in the network with
two-stage genetic algorithm in this paper and Jin's genetic
ET = l × E ε + l × ξ l × d 4 (1) algorithm and then record the network lifecycle.Figure 5
and Figure 6 are the experimental results.
ET = l × Eε + l × ξ s × d 2
(2)
E r = l × Eε + l × E bf
(3)
ET expresses the energy wastage during the node's
transmitting data,l the bat quantity of data transmission,ȟl the
parameter of long-distance communication energy wastage
and ȟs the parameter of short-distance communication
energy wastage.When d is more than 87.7,formula 1 will be
applied.While when d is less than 87.7,formula 2 will be
employed.The value of each parameter is as follows:
ξ l = 0.0013pJ/bit/m 4 ˈ ξ s = 10pJ/bit/m
2
ˈ Figure 4. Network Node Figure 5. Network Lifecycle
E e = 50nJ/bit E bf = 5n J/bit Distribution Curve in Experiment 1
ˈ
During the experiment,it will create randomly energy From Figure 5 we can see that the network lifecycle
value of initial node energy through the program.The gained from the two-stage genetic algorithm in this paper is
maximum node energy should not be over 1 Joule.For two better than that of Jin's genetic algorithm.As the algorithm
types of network,we fire two stages of genetic in this paper adds waypoints during the two stage,it can help
algorithm.Take the optimal result gained from choosing two- cluster head which is further away from the Sink node
stage algorithm as route through which the nodes transmit transmit data.Thus it reduces long-distance data
data.The cluster head nodes have the function of data transmission.So it means to reducing the energy wastage of
fusion.They can compress the data value they have the whole network and increasing the network lifecycle.
collected.Meanwhile,when the survival node's quantity in the
network is less than 25,the algorithm will be ended.

IV.RESULT ANALYSIS
Digital camera has a high affinity among users and it can
gain complete images without fixing the palm at a high
speed. So it is chosen to obtain initial image. During the
experiment, 50 teachers and students’ handprint images
whose resolution ratio is 150dpi and size is 418×512 are
collected. The images should be firstly pretreated by the
method of denoising and gray making with gauss low-pass
filter. Since the users’ palms have not been fixed during the
process of image collection, there are problems we have to
face such as translation and circumrotation of the palm
images that have obtained. In order to overcome it, it is
necessary to locate the images. At first, deal the images with
boundary following to locate the key points of palm exactly.
Then employ A, B and C to mark contour feature points.
Next set up a coordinate system that takes link of A and C
for X-axis and beeline which both passes through B and
perpendiculars to X-axis for Y-axis, as figure 2 shows.
According to this coordinate system, extract the next area of
interest from the palm image.
A. Comparison of Capability Between This Algorithm & Jin
Algorithm
Experiment 1 will compare the capability between
algorithm in this paper and Jin's genetic algorithm.It can
prove the effect of the improved algorithm through the
Figure 6. Energy Wastage Sketch Map
Figure 6 expresses the energy wastage of WSN during
the process of each data transmission.Among them,the
longitudinal coordinates express the energy value that has
been used up during the process of transmission and its unit
is mJ.From the figure we can see that compared with Jin's
algorithm,the algorithm in this paper has a lower energy
wastage during data transmission.As algorithm in this paper
can find an appropriate waypoint for the far-end cluster head
nodes in the second stage,it can save more energy when
transmits data and effectively lengthen the network
lifecycle.
B. Comparative Test Between Grid Nodes & Random Nodes
As the type of grid network is entirely different from the
random node network,doing model expriments among
different types of network can preferably validate validity of
algorithms.The two kinds of network nodes have the same

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initial energy value.From figure 7 we can see that the
capability of algorithm depends on the network structure.In
random network,the transmission quantity can reach over
9000,which is a little more than that of grid nodes.
Figure 7. Result Chart in Experiment 2
C. Location Change of Sink Nodes
Experiment 3 will change the location of Sink nodes and
severally value them as (50,150),(50,175) and
(50,200).Through the change of Sink nodes,validate the
capability of algorithm in this paper when the distances
between Sink node and WSN are different.
From figure 8 we can see that when the Sink node has a
coordinate of (50,200),data transmission quantity is the least
one about 6000 times.When the Sink coordinate is
(50,175),transmission quantity is about 9000.When the Sink
node's coordinate is (50,150),transmission quantity is near
to 12000.At this time,the Sink node is the nearest to the
network.Hence we can see that with the Sink nodes' moving
towards the network,the network lifecycle is continuously
increasing.So the location of Sink nodes will have a great
influence on the network lifecycle.
Figure 8. Result Chart Figure 9. Result Chart
in Experiment 3 in Experiment 4
D. Model Experiments Under Different Network Scales
Experiment 4 will do model experiments under different
network scales.The network scales are 100 nodes,200 nodes
and 300 nodes.The base station coordinate is (50,175).The
initial energy value of nodes are all set as 1 Joule.
From figure 9 we can see that the two-stage genetic
algorithm in this paper has different capabilities in different
scales of WSN.The lifecycles are nearly the same in
networks of 200 nodes and 300 nodes with a transmission
quantity of about 20000.And in the network whose node
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amount is 300 it has the best algorithm result.But in the 100-
node network,lifecycle has a large decreasing amplitude
with a transmission quantity of less than 18000.Thus it
proves that this algorithm has a better capability in large
scale networks.
V.CONCLUSION
This paper focuses on researching the application of
genetic algorithm in hierarchy routing algorithm and puts
forward a two-stage algorithm aiming at the disadvantages
of large energy wastage during communication and short
network operating cycles made by nodes which are further
away from Sink nodes.Thus it not only manage reducing the
energy wastage of data transmission but also reach the goal
of lengthening network lifecycle.At last,this paper does the
model experiment of algorithm and reaches the expected
ideal impact.
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