To prolong the network lifetime, we propose an energy
efficient chain-based routing scheme and a distributed
algorithm for constructing the routing chain based on the
minimum cost tree. The chain construction algorithm
calculates the transmission cost based on received signal
strength. Therefore, it doesn’t require global knowledge of
nodes’ location information and provides more accurate
communication cost calculation among nodes under different
practical deployment environments. The proposed power
aware mechanism for leader node election in the chain
ensures more uniform energy consumption among nodes. The
simulation shows the new scheme provides more uniform
energy consumption among nodes and better active network
lifetime in different network settings as compared to previous
chain-based protocols.