## 4 Simulation Results and Discussions
### Simulation Variable Environment  
Our simulation environment consists of dynamic nodes deployed sparsely in a 3D environment (\(500\) m \(\times\)\(500\) m \(\times\)\(500\) m). Herein, we run the simulation cycle for 1000 rounds. Moreover, to check the scalability of the proposed work, we change the number of nodes and their transmission ranges varying from 50 to 250 and 15 m to 200 m, respectively as in [34].  
The proposed protocol is evaluated based on residual energy and packets received that will be impacted on the network lifetime and throughput, respectively. In terms of residual energy metric, the Figure 8 shows three protocols reduced the residual energy. However, the residual energy in CTP-SEEC is higher than in SEEC, or DBR, during a varied number of sensor nodes. In DBR, the increase in the number of nodes in the network shows that more data packets can be received by the forwarding node. In turn, it sends these packets to the upper level before reaching the sink. Here, DBR elects the upper-level depth to be its forwarder node, and this process results in high energy consumption due to high transmission at the forwarders node. In SEEC, the protocol performs better than the DBR in the case of a low transmission range which ensures a long network lifetime. The node that selects to be a CH based on its depth and residual energy makes all the nodes efficient to save energy in case of a varying number of nodes and transmission range. However, the cluster head broadcasts information to the three-dimensional area network, the nodes  
Figure 8: Residual Energy.  
consume energy gradually. However, CTP-SEEC can be performed as a CH or CR, thus the cluster head has the information of its cluster members, which reduces the number of transmissions between nodes.  
Figure 9 shows the higher energy consumption in CTP-SEEC, SEEC, and DBR, when decreasing the transmission range. In CTP-SEEC, the residual energy within a 200 m transmission range is more than a 150 m transmission range. The cluster heads collect the data of all the cluster members and then forward these to the cluster relay which belongs to another cluster.  
In terms of received packets metrics, the network topology changes every 1000 rounds during the deployment, which causes an error in received packets at cluster head and cluster relay because the distance from the cluster member to the cluster head greater than the transmission range that makes fail received packets at the cluster head or cluster members leads to reduce the level of received power. Thus, the cluster should be a renewed setup, a cluster head, a cluster member, and a cluster relay must be re-elected. Figure 10 shows lower residual energy at the node during the increased transmission range.  
Figure 10: Residual energy: Transmission range 150 m, nodes from 50 to 250.  
Figure 9: Residual energy: Transmission range 200 m, nodes from 50 to 250.  
In Figure 11, we can see that by changing the transmission range to 200 m, the received packets at the sink increases in CTP-SEEC protocol, which is higher than in SEEC, or DBR. It increases the received packets at the sink with increase to the transmission range and it is periodically different from the total number of received packets in CTP-SEEC.  
Figure 12 shows that the received packets at the sinks in CTP-SEEC are higher than other protocols, which results in high throughput and a more reliable network.