Dynamic Topology Model of Q-Learning LEACH Using Disposable Sensors in Autonomous Things Environment

Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) is a typical routing protocol that effectively reduces transmission energy consumption by forming a hierarchical structure between nodes. LEACH on Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has been widely studied in the recent decade as one key technique for the Internet of Things (IoT). The main aims of the autonomous things, and one of advanced of IoT, is that it creates a flexible environment that enables movement and communication between objects anytime, anywhere, by saving computing power and utilizing efficient wireless communication capability. However, the existing LEACH method is only based on the model with a static topology, but a case for a disposable sensor is included in an autonomous thing’s environment. With the increase of interest in disposable sensors which constantly change their locations during the operation, dynamic topology changes should be considered in LEACH. This study suggests the probing model for randomly moving nodes, implementing a change in the position of a node depending on the environment, such as strong winds. In addition, as a method to quickly adapt to the change in node location and construct a new topology, we propose Q-learning LEACH based on Q-table reinforcement learning and Fuzzy-LEACH based on Fuzzifier method. Then, we compared the results of the dynamic and static topology model with existing LEACH on the aspects of energy loss, number of alive nodes, and throughput. By comparison, all types of LEACH showed sensitivity results on the dynamic location of each node, while Q-LEACH shows best performance of all.