EDCOPA Protocol: Addressing Scalability, High-Density and Load Balancing Challenges in WSN-based IoT

Energy optimization in Wireless Sensor Networks for the Internet of Things (WSN-Based IoT) is essential to extend the lifetime of networks while guaranteeing optimum performance. This paper investigates the performance of the EDCOPA protocol, which is an enhancement of the DCOPA protocol, by addressing three key aspects: the impact of scalabil-ity, network density, and load balancing. The DCOPA protocol, while powerful, has limitations in that it relies solely on residual energy and Distance to the Base Station (DistBS) to select cluster heads (CHs). To overcome this limitation, the EDCOPA protocol integrates new criteria, namely the energy consumption in the previous round Epr<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">i</inf> and the CH role frequency Nch<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">i</inf> of a given node. We study the effect of scalability as well as the impact of density on the Lifetime Parameters (LTP). In addition, we analyze load balancing by evaluating the distribution of CHs and clusters after the clustering process. This analysis examines how the proposed improvements affect energy efficiency and network LTP. This paper provides an in-depth look at the performance of the EDCOPA protocol in terms of properties that are extremely important in WSN-based IoT networks.