Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are becoming a significant technology for ubiquitous living and continue to be involved in active research because of their varied applications. Energy awareness will be a critical design problem in WSNs. Clustering is a widespread energy-efficient method and grants several benefits such as scalability, energy efficiency, less delay, and lifetime, but it results in hotspot issues. To solve this, unequal clustering (UC) has been presented. In UC, the size of the cluster differs with the distance to the base station (BS). This paper devises an improved tuna-swarm-algorithm-based unequal clustering for hotspot elimination (ITSA-UCHSE) technique in an energy-aware WSN. The ITSA-UCHSE technique intends to resolve the hotspot problem and uneven energy dissipation in the WSN. In this study, the ITSA is derived from the use of a tent chaotic map with the traditional TSA. In addition, the ITSA-UCHSE technique computes a fitness value based on energy and distance metrics. Moreover, the cluster size determination via the ITSA-UCHSE technique helps to address the hotspot issue. To demonstrate the enhanced performance of the ITSA-UCHSE approach, a series of simulation analyses were conducted. The simulation values stated that the ITSA-UCHSE algorithm has reached improved results over other models.
Keywords: energy dissipation; hotspot problem; load balancing; tuna swarm algorithm; unequal clustering; wireless sensor network.