ENORCH: A Novel Energy-Efficient Protocol for IoT-Enabled Wireless Sensor Networks

This Article presents a novel energy-efficient routing protocol, ENORCH (Energy- Optimized Routing and Clustering Hybrid), specifically designed to enhance the performance and longevity of IoT-enabled Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). The growing demand for energy-aware communication in WSNs, especially in Inter- net of Things (IoT) applications, necessitates innovative strategies that minimize energy consumption without compromising data delivery and reliability. ENORCH integrates cluster-based organization with adaptive route selection to optimize node energy utilization and minimize data latency. A comprehensive simulation-based evaluation is conducted by benchmarking ENORCH against seven state-of-the- art routing protocols: LEACH, TEEN, PEGASIS, SMEOR, EHEER, ROTEE, and DEEC. Performance metrics such as energy consumption per round, network life- time, throughput, packet delivery ratio (PDR), and delay are analyzed under various network scenarios. The results demonstrate that ENORCH significantly outperforms existing methods in terms of energy savings, load balancing, and scalability. Notably, it extends the stable region and reduces early node deaths, leading to enhanced net- work resilience and sustainability. Future work will focus on real-world deployment challenges, integration with energy harvesting models, and incorporation of machine learning for predictive routing.