Adaptive Mobility and Range Based Clustering Dependent MAC Protocol for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Clustering, especially in vehicular safety applications is an important part of intelligent transportation systems. In this paper, an adaptive mobility and range based clustering (AMRBC) based MAC protocol is proposed. The protocol aims to maintain a stable clustering and hence a communication range to maintain high stability of network. Secondly, AMRBC limits the cluster size to a level at which all the cluster members can exchange their beacons within control channel interval. AMRBC prioritizes safety messages over infotainment messages by granting immediate channel access to safety messages over infotainment messages thereby significantly reducing safety message delay. Moreover, the proposed MAC protocol fairly distributes wireless channels among vehicles and ensures that all the vehicles exchange their beacons within finite interval of time. Analytical modelling along with simulation based performance analysis demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed protocol in terms of average cluster head time, safety message delay, throughput, reliability and packet delivery ratio.