Channel access-based self-organized clustering in ad hoc networks

An ad hoc network is a self-organized and distributed entity consisting of a number of mobile stations (MSs) without the coordination of any centralized access point. Clustering is one of the fundamental problems in ad hoc networks. In this context, we describe a distributed clustering algorithm for multihop ad hoc networks. We first propose a randomized control channel broadcast access method to maximize the worst-case control channel efficiency, based on which a distributed clustering algorithm is proposed. Both theoretical analysis and simulations indicate that the proposed clustering algorithm takes much less time and overhead to cluster a given network with more stable cluster structure, while incurring very small maintenance overhead in a dynamic network resulting from the mobility of the MSs.