A Stable Clustering Algorithm Based on Link Stability for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

Recently, extensive research efforts have been devoted to the design of efficient clustering algorithms to divide all the nodes in a mobile ad hoc network into multiple clusters to form a clustered architecture. A clustered architecture is more stable if it can hold for a longer period of time. In a clustered architecture, due to node mobility, a node may depart from its original cluster and enter another cluster dynamically. Such a change may cause the clustered architecture to be reconfigured, leading to the instability of the network. Frequent information exchanges among the participating nodes and re-computation of clusters involve high communication and computation overheads. Therefore, it is obvious that a more stable clustered architecture will directly lead to the performance improvement of the whole network. In this paper, we propose an efficient clustering algorithm that can establish a more stable clustered architecture by keeping a node with many weak links from being selected as a clusterhead. Computer simulations show that the clustered architectures generated by our clustering algorithm are more stable than those generated by other clustering algorithms.