Abstract: We proposed a directed diffusion routing protocol based on clusterhead path transformation in wireless sensor network (DDCPT) to resolve the problem of huge energy consumption at interests flood stage and the maintenance of optimal path in directed diffusion. Firstly, the protocol divided the network into clusters by combining uneven clustering, and spread the interest messages to clusterhead at interests flood stage, thus reducing the energy consumption. Secondly, the next hop clusterhead with the highest priority was selected in clusterhead to build optimal path, and then the followup data was transmitted. Until a clusterhead’s remaining energy of the optimal path was close to the threshold, the network converted the optimal path to continue transferring the data through selecting the succeed transmission node with clusterhead’s backtracking iterative query mechanism based on time. The simulation results show that the protocol can effectively prolong the network lifetime, improve the energy utilization efficiency, and balance the energy consumption of network.

Key words: uneven clustering, path transformation, directed diffusion, wireless sensor network (WSN), routing protocol