Constructing a MANET Based on Clusters

This paper proposes a scheme for constructing a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) based on clusters. The proposed MANET architecture is made up of two hierarchies. One hierarchy is the backbone network which is made up of cluster heads and associate nodes, and the other hierarchy is the cluster which is made up of one cluster head and multiple cluster members. In the proposed cluster generation algorithm, the number of potential cluster members is used as a metric, and it is always the new node with the maximum number of potential cluster members that is elected as a cluster head. In this way, the number of cluster heads is minimized. In this scheme, only one associate node is used to achieve the communication between two cluster heads, so the number of nodes included in the backbone network is minimized. This scheme also proposes the cluster merging algorithm in order to maintain the minimum number of cluster heads. In the proposed cluster repair algorithm, if a cluster head fails/moves out of the cluster, then a new cluster head is elected to maintain the cluster stability. From the perspective of the cluster stability, this paper analyzes the performance parameters of the proposed scheme, and the data results show that the proposed scheme improves the MANET stability.