Efficient Zone Routing through K-Nearest Neighbours Optimization in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks faces significant challenges due to limited energy and computational resources, requires efficient routing protocols to optimize network lifetime and performance. Traditional Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) employs mixed routing approach to minimize overhead by partitioning the network in various zones, and utilises the proactive routing approach within zones and follow the reactive routing among zones. However, inefficient zone formation increases routing overhead and reduce scalability, limiting the protocol's effectiveness in dynamic environments. This paper addresses these limitations by integrating the K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) algorithm into ZRP, optimizing zone creation based on node proximity to enhance the routing efficiency and network organization. The proposed KNN-ZRP approach aims to create more cohesive and strategically formed zones, thus reduces the number of zones needed and improves the communication efficiency. Through extensive simulations, the paper presents a comparison among the performance of traditional ZRP with the KNN-enhanced ZRP across metrics such as zone count, routing overhead, and average distance to the nearest neighbour. The result shows that the KNN-ZRP approach achieves a significant reduction in routing overhead and prolongs network lifetime, with results showing up to a 30% reduction in zone numbers and improved resource conservation. This approach demonstrates substantial improvements in network scalability and efficiency, making it highly suitable for deployment in resource constrained WSN environments.