An Improved Compound Clustering Algorithm in Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

Abstract

The application of Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) technologies in the service of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) has brought new challenges in maintaining communication clusters of network members for long time durations. Stable clustering methods reduce the overhead of communication relay in MANETs and provide for a more efficient hierarchical network topology. During the creation of Vehicle Ad Hoc Network (VANET) clusters, one vehicle node per cluster is selected as the cluster head to act as the routing node. In this paper, we propose a Compound Utility Function (CUF) clustering algorithm which takes into consideration the degree, position, velocity and acceleration of a vehicle altogether, and the invocation of this algorithm is not periodic as in earlier research, but reactive on the dynamism of the nodes, in the paper we experimentally compare CUF with Highest-Degree and Lowest-ID) algorithm. The results show that CUF gives the best cluster stability.