  Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of many individual sensors that are
deployed in the area of interest. These sensor nodes have major energy
constraints as they are small and their battery can't be replaced. They
collaborate together in order to gather, transmit and forward the sensed data
to the base station. Consequently, data transmission is one of the biggest
reasons for energy depletion in WSN. Clustering is one of the most effective
techniques for energy efficient data transmission in WSN. In this paper, an
energy efficient cluster head selection algorithm which is based on Whale
Optimization Algorithm (WOA) called WOA-Clustering (WOA-C) is proposed.
Accordingly, the proposed algorithm helps in selection of energy aware cluster
heads based on a fitness function which considers the residual energy of the
node and the sum of energy of adjacent nodes. The proposed algorithm is
evaluated for network lifetime, energy efficiency, throughput and overall
stability. Furthermore, the performance of WOA-C is evaluated against other
standard contemporary routing protocols such as LEACH. Extensive simulations
show the superior performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of residual
energy, network lifetime and longer stability period.
