Energy Aware WSN Clustering and Routing using Quantum Inspired Grey Wolf Optimization with Blockchain Assisted Trust Management

: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) face major challenges in energy efficiency and security due to limited resources of sensor nodes and the threat of malicious participants. Conventional clustering and routing protocols improve energy balance but often neglect trust and security. This paper presents a hybrid framework that integrates Quantum-Inspired Grey Wolf Optimization (QGWO) for cluster-head (CH) election with Blockchain-Assisted Trust Management (BATM) for secure data transmission. QGWO enhances exploration and exploitation during CH selection, ensuring balanced energy usage and extended lifetime, while BATM introduces a lightweight, decentralized trust mechanism to detect and isolate malicious nodes. Simulation results confirm that the proposed QGWO-BATM achieves longer network lifetime, lower energy consumption, higher throughput, and improved trust accuracy compared with LEACH, LEACH-C, GWO, and SCA-Lévy.