Energy-efficient of nodes is the hot topic in wireless sensor networks(WSNs). Grid-based routing is an efficient strategy for routing. Therefore
virtual grid-based grid head connected routing(VGCR) is proposed. The network is partitioned into virtual equal-sized grids by VGCR routing. Each grid generates a grid head. The routing path to the sink is established using grid heads. Grid heads are switched between active and sleep state. Therefore
not all grid heads take part in the routing process at the same time. This saves energy in grid heads and improves the network lifetime. To handle the movement of sink
VGCR routing only updates grid head which is near to the grid. Simulation results show that the proposed VGCR routing outperforms than similar algorithms in terms of network lifetime and packet delivery ratio.