Journal of Engineering and Technology ISSN: 2180-3811 Vol. 9 No. 2 July – December 2018 A CLUSTER HEAD ASSISTED ROUTING (CHAR) SCHEME FOR IMPROVED ENERGY LOAD BALANCING IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS S.O. Adetona * , L. Ahemba, and A. L. Imoize Department of Elect. & Elect. Engineering, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria ABSTRACT This study presents a Cluster Head Assisted Routing (CHAR) scheme aimed at reducing the burden on Cluster Heads (CHs) while maintaining the hierarchical structure and its advantages. The Assisting Cluster Head (ACH) collates data within the cluster while the cluster head (CH) is left with the task of transmitting collated data towards the base station (BS). In this manner, the huge energy burden hitherto on the CH is reduced. An energy cost function is developed; which considers the residual energy of the nodes and the energy burden imposed on the cluster should any member is elected as a head. The node that best satisfies the two criteria is favored to be elected as the head. Simulations were carried out in MATLAB and in a test bed using ESP8266, conditioned with power supply unit, a voltage measuring circuit and a firmware, as the wireless sensor nodes. The results revealed an improvement in the energy consumption profile of the CHAR over non cluster head assisted routing. The CHAR scheme recorded a 12.9% improvement in round-count before First Node Death (FND). Other parameters compared are Last Node Death (LND), Residual energy per round and energy left unused at the end of the experiment KEYWORDS: Wireless Sensor Network; Routing Protocols; Algorithms; and Power management 1.0 INTRODUCTION Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have received a great deal of attention owing to their wide range of applications, and the great potentials minimize cost and improve efficiency of communication systems. They find useful applications in Security (surveillance, detection of IEDs) (Salman-ul-Hassan, Zoya, Fatima, & Umer, 2012), traffic management (monitor the flow of traffic and best route detection in real time) (Munienge, Ekabua, & Isong, 2015), biomedical applications (body sensor network) (Sing-Hui, Kyeong-Hoon, Wan-Young, & Seung-Chul, 2009), industrial control and automation (Kay, Win, & Meng, 2005), and in study-data capturing in environments that maybe hazardous or sometimes inaccessible by humans (Lohith, & Bharatesh, 2015; Sasi, Sushmita, & Amuya, 2013). Although WSNs have been variously applied, the potential of this technology is still limited by a number of design constraints. Some of the important and widely studied issues with WSNs as highlighted by Himani (2014), namely security, hardware design, energy and power management challenges. The security of a WSN, as with any other networks, influences its operability and is also one of the crucial factors that determines whether a network is available or not. According to Lohith & Bharatesh (2015), security issues in WSNs involved data authentication, data confidentiality, and data integrity and data freshness. * Corresponding Email: sundayadetona@gmail.com