CNCMSA-ERCP: An Innovative Energy-Efficient Clustering Routing Protocol for Improving the Performance of Industrial IoT

As Industry 4.0 rapidly advances, optimizing energy and performance in industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs) for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is critical. Addressing the NP-hard challenge of IWSN clustering, this article introduces a novel multiobjective model to balance energy consumption and enhance service quality. Based on this model, a new energy-saving cluster routing protocol called CNCMSA-ECRP was designed. The protocol comprehensively considers four key indicators: 1) total residual energy; 2) average network delay; 3) average network packet loss rate; and 4) average distance from cluster heads (CHs) to the base station (BS), with the goal of achieving overall optimization of network performance. The CNCMSA-ECRP protocol employs our newly proposed chaotic niching clone moth swarm algorithm (CNCMSA). The algorithm introduces chaotic mapping operators in the initialization phase and clonal and niching operators in the evolution phase, enhancing the search capability and diversity of the algorithm, as well as improving clustering efficiency and network stability. Comparative experiments with four existing advanced clustering schemes—LEACH-C, EEHCHR, OptGACHE, and ESCVAD—demonstrate that CNCMSA-ECRP achieves at least a 16.38% increase in network lifespan and significantly reduces average data transmission delay and packet loss rate by at least 1.84% and 17.76%, respectively. This research provides a novel solution to the clustering routing problem in IWSN.