Abstract
In this paper, we present an approach to clustering sensor nodes based on a quantum Artificial Bee Colony (QABC). The ultimate goal is to converge to a better protocol that allows optimal energy consumption. In the proposed approach, some quantum computing principles have been used to represent each individual in the population in terms of quantum bits and to foster the search capabilities of the search process through an interference operation. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been assessed and compared to state of the art clustering-based methods namely Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy algorithm (LEACH) and another Adaptive Artificial Bee Colony algorithm. The obtained results show that the proposed approach optimizes, in an efficient manner, the lifetime of wireless sensor networks. They also show that the proposed method competes with and even outperforms the other methods.