A Graph-Based Clustering Algorithm for the Internet of Vehicles

In the large-scale and ultra-dense Internet of Vehicles (IoVs), constructing the simplest backbone network is an urgent problem to be solved. In fact, constructing the simplest backbone network is an NP-hard problem, and at present, there is no effective solution. In this paper, we propose a graph-based clustering algorithm to solve this problem and construct the simplest backbone network in the large-scale and ultra-dense IoV. We establish a backbone network model for the large-scale and ultra-dense IoV and optimize the backbone network by employing a novel local search iterative algorithm. Simulation results show that with the increase in node density, the number of clusters selected by the proposed algorithm tends to be stable, while the number of optimized clusters decreases by 28.87% on an average. Thus, the proposed algorithm can effectively simplify the backbone network.