Improving Smart Irrigation Systems through Energy Efficient Cluster-Head Selection in Heterogeneous WSNs

Abstract Smart irrigation systems require reliable and energy-efficient communication between the sensors in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and the control system. To address this challenge, this paper presents several cluster-based selection protocols, based on the Stable Election Protocol (SEP) and Distributed Energy-Efficient Clustering (DEEC). The presented protocols divide the agriculture field into sub-fields to reduce energy consumption between far sensors and the base station (BS). Comparison with traditional protocols using evaluation metrics such as network throughput, stability, instability period, and lifetime, shows that the presented protocols outperform in terms of all metrics. The results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed protocols in prolonging the network's lifetime and improving energy efficiency in heterogeneous WSNs, thus supporting the performance of smart irrigation systems.