On access-based self-organized clustering in ad hoc mobile wireless networks

Access-based clustering in a mobile ad hoc network generally builds on a broadcast mechanism in the shared radio channel to transmit control messages for cluster formation. Performances of two recently proposed access-based clustering schemes, namely, access-based clustering protocol (ABCP) and channel access-based clustering (CABC) are compared with the performance of a new clustering scheme, namely, mobility-aware pro-active low energy (MAPLE) clustering which overcomes the major limitations of the former two schemes. For pro-active clustering MAPLE exploits the link level information to estimate the mobility pattern of the wireless nodes and the cost of using a wireless link in terms of required transmission power. A channel reservation technique is used to reduce the number of contentions among the nodes while accessing the channel during cluster formation. Simulation results show that the proposed MAPLE clustering offers superior performance in terms of stability, clustering overhead and load distribution.