Abstract
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are vulnerable to several challenges. Congestion control, the utilization of trust to ensure security, and the incorporation of clustering schemes demand much attention. Algorithms designed to deal with congestion control fail to ensure security and address challenges faced due to congestion in the network. To resolve this issue, a Hybrid Trust-based Congestion-aware Cluster Routing (HTCCR) protocol is proposed to effectively detect attacker nodes and reduce congestion via optimal routing through clustering. In the proposed HTCCR protocol, node probability is determined based on the trust factor, queue congestion status, residual energy (RE), and distance from the mobile base station (BS) by using hybrid K-Harmonic Means (KHM) and the Enhanced Gravitational Search Algorithm (EGSA). Sensor nodes select cluster heads (CHs) with better fitness values and transmit data through them. The CH forwards data to a mobile sink once the sink comes into the range of CH. Priority-based data delivery is incorporated to effectively control packet forwarding based on priority level, thus decreasing congestion. It is evident that the propounded HTCCR protocol offers better performance in contrast to the benchmarked TBSEER, CTRF, and TAGA based on the average delay, packet delivery ratio (PDR), throughput, detection ratio, packet loss ratio (PLR), overheads, and energy through simulations. The proposed HTCCR protocol involves 2.5, 2.3, and 1.7 times less delay; an 18.1%, 12.5%, and 5.5% better detection ratio; 2.9, 2.6, and 1.8 times less energy; a 2.2, 1.9, and 1.5 times lower PLR; a 14.5%, 10.5%, and 5.2% better PDR; a 30.7%, 28.5%, and 18.4% better throughput; and 2.27, 1.91, and 1.66 times lower routing overheads in contrast to the TBSEER, CTRF, and TAGA protocols, respectively. The HTCCR protocol involves 4.1% less delay for the 'C1' and 'C2' RT packets, and the average throughput of RT is 10.4% better when compared with NRT.