A Novel Density-Based Hybrid Multi-Hop PEGASIS Protocol with Adaptive Packet Transmission for Energy-Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy imbalance and costly long-distance communication remain limitations of chain-based routing in energy-constrained wireless sensor networks. Energy imbalance is still a problem even though PEGASIS reduces transmission distance through chain-based data aggregation. Energy imbalance can be affected by repeated leader burden, expensive leader-to-sink communication, fixed packet size, and limited adaptation to changes in node-energy distribution. This study proposes Density-Based Hybrid MultiHop PEGASIS, which integrates adaptive DBSCAN clustering localized nearest-neighbor chain construction, multi-criteria leader selection, adaptive packet sizing, conditional energy-aware relay transmission and periodic mobile-sink repositioning. The protocol was evaluated using a custom round-based MATLAB simulator with 300 homogeneous sensor nodes deployed over a 300 m × 300 m field. At (Eo = 0.5) J, the mean first node dies values were 208.13, 163.67, and 41.30 rounds for Density-Based Hybrid Multi- Hop PEGASIS, PEGASIS, and HEED, respectively; at (Eo = 1.0) J, the corresponding values were 400.63, 327.57, and 104.93 rounds. Density-Based Hybrid Multi-Hop PEGASIS did not differ significantly from PEGASIS, in the first node dies analysis. Differed significantly from HEED under both energy conditions. Energy and energy-distribution analyses further indicate slower energy depletion, improved routing-level energy management, and enhanced long-term network persistence across both evaluated initial-energy conditions in the controlled experiments.