{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,18]],"date-time":"2026-03-18T18:28:11Z","timestamp":1773858491454,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":44,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,11]],"date-time":"2017-08-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1502409600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Network lifetime and energy efficiency are crucial performance metrics used to evaluate wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Decreasing and balancing the energy consumption of nodes can be employed to increase network lifetime. In cluster-based WSNs, one objective of applying clustering is to decrease the energy consumption of the network. In fact, the clustering technique will be considered effective if the energy consumed by sensor nodes decreases after applying clustering, however, this aim will not be achieved if the cluster size is not properly chosen. Therefore, in this paper, the energy consumption of nodes, before clustering, is considered to determine the optimal cluster size. A two-stage Genetic Algorithm (GA) is employed to determine the optimal interval of cluster size and derive the exact value from the interval. Furthermore, the energy hole is an inherent problem which leads to a remarkable decrease in the network\u2019s lifespan. This problem stems from the asynchronous energy depletion of nodes located in different layers of the network. For this reason, we propose Circular Motion of Mobile-Sink with Varied Velocity Algorithm (CM2SV2) to balance the energy consumption ratio of cluster heads (CH). According to the results, these strategies could largely increase the network\u2019s lifetime by decreasing the energy consumption of sensors and balancing the energy consumption among CHs.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s17081858","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,11]],"date-time":"2017-08-11T10:07:40Z","timestamp":1502446060000},"page":"1858","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":25,"title":["An Energy-Efficient Mobile Sink-Based Unequal Clustering Mechanism for WSNs"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Niayesh","family":"Gharaei","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kamalrulnizam","family":"Abu Bakar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Siti","family":"Mohd Hashim","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ali","family":"Hosseingholi Pourasl","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7805-0815","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mohammad","family":"Siraj","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Engineering, King Saud University, Post Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Tasneem","family":"Darwish","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11113","DOI":"10.3390\/s120811113","article-title":"A survey on clustering routing protocols in wireless sensor networks","volume":"12","author":"Liu","year":"2012","journal-title":"Sensors"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"130","DOI":"10.1504\/IJAHUC.2016.075192","article-title":"Energy consumption model for density controlled divide-and-rule scheme for energy efficient routing in wireless sensor networks","volume":"21","author":"Latif","year":"2016","journal-title":"Int. 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