In order to solve the problems of unbalanced energy consumption and untimely death of cluster heads in present clustering routing protocols

a sub-ring-based energy-efficient clustering routing protocol is designed. The residual energy and locations of sensor nodes is considered in cluster heads generation. The alternation between primary and secondary cluster heads is adopted to reduce the energy consumption of the cluster heads. Simulation results show that the presented protocol has ability to balance the energy consumption and extend the lifetime of wireless sensor networks（ WSNs）.