The energy efficiency and stability of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have always been a hot issue in the research. Clustering is a typical architecture for WSNs, and cluster heads (CHs) play a vital role. Unreasonable CH selection causes a lot of energy consumption. In this paper, we propose a competition-based unequal clustering multihop approach (CUCMA). CHs are selected by competition. First, the cluster radius (CR) of a node is calculated according to the distance to base station (BS). Then, CR is resized based on the number of around nodes. Only the nodes with high residual energy and appropriate distances to the selected CHs maybe become CHs, which are usually closer to the surrounding nodes. CUCMA and four related approaches are simulated in different scenarios. The results are analyzed, and it is proved that CUCMA balances the energy consumption of the CHs and reduces the energy consumption of the whole networks, thus leading to prolong the lifetime of WSNs.

中文翻译：

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一种用于无线传感器网络的基于竞争的不等聚类多跳方法

无线传感器网络（WSN）的能量效率和稳定性一直是研究的热点问题。聚类是 WSN 的典型架构，而簇头 (CH) 起着至关重要的作用。不合理的 CH 选择会导致大量的能源消耗。在本文中，我们提出了一种基于竞争的不等聚类多跳方法（CUCMA）。CHs 是通过竞争来选择的。首先，根据到基站（BS）的距离计算节点的簇半径（CR）。然后，根据周围节点的数量调整 CR 的大小。只有剩余能量高且与所选CHs距离合适的节点才可能成为CHs，通常离周围节点更近。在不同的场景中模拟了 CUCMA 和四种相关的方法。结果分析，