{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,20]],"date-time":"2025-11-20T18:42:52Z","timestamp":1763664172614,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":52,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,8]],"date-time":"2020-02-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1581120000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["51536001","51776050"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["51536001","51776050"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Limited energy resources of sensor nodes in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) make energy consumption the most significant problem in practice. This paper proposes a novel, dynamic, self-organizing Hesitant Fuzzy Entropy-based Opportunistic Clustering and data fusion Scheme (HFECS) in order to overcome the energy consumption and network lifetime bottlenecks. The asynchronous working-sleeping cycle of sensor nodes could be exploited to make an opportunistic connection between sensor nodes in heterogeneous clustering. HFECS incorporates two levels of hierarchy in the network and energy heterogeneity is characterized using three levels of energy in sensor nodes. HFECS gathers local sensory data from sensor nodes and utilizes multi-attribute decision modeling and the entropy weight coefficient method for cluster formation and the cluster head election procedure. After cluster formation, HFECS uses the same techniques for performing data fusion at the first hierarchical level to reduce the redundant information flow from the first-second hierarchical levels, which can lead to an improvement in energy consumption, better utilization of bandwidth and extension of network lifetime. Our simulation results reveal that HFECS outperforms the existing benchmark schemes of heterogeneous clustering for larger network sizes in terms of half-life period, stability period, average residual energy, network lifetime, and packet delivery ratio.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s20030913","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,10]],"date-time":"2020-02-10T11:48:51Z","timestamp":1581335331000},"page":"913","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":30,"title":["Hesitant Fuzzy Entropy-Based Opportunistic Clustering and Data Fusion Algorithm for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5768-7526","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Junaid","family":"Anees","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China"},{"name":"Satellite Control Facility (SCF-L) directorate, SE&amp;T wing, Space &amp; Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, Lahore 54000, Pakistan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7712-623X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hao-Chun","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1951-4568","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sobia","family":"Baig","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Lahore Campus, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Lahore 54000, Pakistan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7252-2797","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bachirou","family":"Guene Lougou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Thomas Gasim","family":"Robert Bona","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Life Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"710","article-title":"Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey","volume":"74","author":"Manshahia","year":"2016","journal-title":"IJSER"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"22","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comcom.2015.09.006","article-title":"A Survey on Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart Grid","volume":"71","author":"Fadel","year":"2015","journal-title":"Comput. 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