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Due to its boundless potential applications, Wireless Sensor Networks have been subject to much research in the last two decades. WSNs are often deployed in remote environments making replacement of batteries not feasible. Low energy consumption being of prime requisite led to the development of energy-efficient routing protocols. The proposed routing algorithms seek to prolong the lifetime of sensor nodes in the relatively unexplored area of 3D WSNs. The schemes use chain-based routing technique PEGASIS as basis and employ genetic algorithm to build the chain instead of the greedy algorithm. Proposed schemes will incorporate an energy and distance aware CH selection technique to improve load balancing. Clustering of the network is also implemented to reduce number of nodes in a chain and hence reduce delay. Simulation of our proposed protocols is carried out for homogeneous networks considering separately cases for a static base-station inside and outside the network. Results indicate considerable improvement in lifetime over PEGASIS of 817% and 420% for base station inside and outside the network respectively. Residual energy and delay performance are also considered.

The performance of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) applications is bounded by the limited resources of battery-enabled Sensor Nodes (SNs), which include energy and computational power; the combination of which existing research seldom focuses on. Although bio-inspired algorithms provide a way to control energy usage by finding optimal routing paths, those which converge slower require even more computational power, which altogether degrades the overall lifetime of SNs.

Hence, two novel routing protocols are proposed using the Red-Deer Algorithm (RDA) in a WSN scenario, namely Horizontal PEG-RDA Equal Clustering and Horizontal PEG-RDA Unequal Clustering, to address the limited computational power of SNs. Clustering, data aggregation and multi-hop transmission are also integrated to improve energy usage. Unequal clustering is applied in the second protocol to mitigate the hotspot problem in Horizontal PEG-RDA Equal Clustering.

Comparisons with the well-founded Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) algorithm reveal that RDA converges faster by 85 and 80% on average when the network size and node density are varied, respectively. Furthermore, 33% fewer packets are lost using the unequal clustering approach which also makes the network resilient to node failures. Improvements in terms of residual energy and overall network lifetime are also observed.

Proposal of a bio-inspired algorithm, namely the RDA to find optimal routing paths in WSN and to enhance convergence rate and execution time against the well-established ACO algorithm. Creation of a novel chain cluster-based routing protocol using RDA, named Horizontal PEG-RDA Equal Clustering. Design of an unequal clustering equivalent of the proposed Horizontal PEG-RDA Equal Clustering protocol to tackle the hotspot problem, which enhances residual energy and overall network lifetime, as well as minimises packet loss.

With the increasing acclaim of Wireless Sensor Networks and its diverse applications, research has been directed into optimising and prolonging the network lifetime. Energy efficiency has been a critical factor due to the energy resource impediment of batteries in sensor nodes. The proposed routing algorithm therefore aims at extending lifetime of sensors by enhancing load distribution in the network. The scheme is based on the chain-based routing technique of the PEGASIS (Power Energy GAthering in Sensor Information Systems) protocol and uses Ant Colony Optimisation to obtain the optimal chain. The contribution of the proposed work is the integration of the clustering method to PEGASIS with Ant Colony Optimisation to reduce redundancy of data, neighbour nodes distance and transmission delay associated with long links, and the employment an appropriate cluster head selection method. Simulation results indicates proposed method’s superiority in terms of residual energy along with considerable improvement regarding network lifetime, and significant reduction in delay when compared with existing PEGASIS protocol and optimised PEG-ACO chain respectively.