Effect of multi-path fading model on T-ANT clustering protocol for WSN

Routing the data efficiently in wireless sensor network (WSN) is the current area of research. Recently, many hybrid routing protocols have been proposed for WSNs. The key interest is on improving energy efficiency, network lifetime, deployment strategy, fault tolerance and latency. T-ANT clustering protocol is an efficient, scalable and robust data routing strategy. This protocol uses both hierarchical structure and biological inspiration. In this paper we investigate the effect of multi-path fading model on T-ANT clustering protocol and provide comparative study of results with the T-ANT protocol in isotropic model in a simulated environment on MATLAB platform. In particular, we are interested to investigate the effect of multi-path fading model on clustering fitness, cluster head election fitness and work load distribution among sensor nodes. The results show that T-ANT protocol in multi-path fading model performs little lower than the T-ANT protocol in isotropic model without affecting the clustering fitness properties.