Signal Attenuation-aware Clustering in Wireless Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
Due to the dynamic nature of wireless mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), clustering is recognized as a promising solution for enhancing the scalability of MANETs against frequent topology changes. Numerous techniques have been proposed to achieve resistant-to-mobility and energy conservation of the network. Most of the existing clustering algorithms assume an ideal network environment with no signal strength attenuation. Therefore, these works fail to scale well in realistic MANETs. In this paper, we present a novel weighted clustering approach in which using received signal strength as an important clustering criterion. By modeling signal attenuation scenarios, the proposed algorithm parameterizes clustering criteria to estimate the quality value of a mobile node. A mobile node with maximum quality value has high probability to play as a clusterhead. Furthermore, we offer an efficient event driven mechanism to handle the dynamic topology of network. We compare the results of SECA with two other well-known clustering approaches; MCFA and GDMAC by using different performance metrics. Simulation results show that SECA is an efficient approach for clustering in realistic network environments and has a good performance in comparison with the other two approaches.