Cooperative Cluster Method Based Power Assignment

Cooperative communication (CC) allows relay nodes to help the source node to simultaneously transmit the same data to the destination node which in some way (such as MRC) correctly decodes the received signal. CC is used in topology control as it can reduce the transmission power and expand the transmission range. However, all previous research on the application of CC in topology control ignored the network capacity by focusing only on maintaining network connectivity and minimizing the total transmission power, which will result in poor network performance or even paralysis of the network. In order to solve this problem, we propose a Cooperative Clustering Based Power Assignment (CCPA) algorithm in cooperative ad hoc networks in this paper. In CCPA, the network isn't connected without CC. First we cluster the network and then make the clusters communicate with each other by CC, and then we use MST to reduce redundant links between clusters, and finally do power assignment. The algorithm aims to minimize the total energy consumption and maximize the network capacity. Then the application of this algorithm is discussed in a distributed case. Experimental results show that CCPA can keep the same energy consumption with Coop. Bridges algorithm; meanwhile, it can improve 20% network capacity. With the number of nodes increasing, it can even improve 100% network capacity.