Clustering in MANETs with Minimum Reclustering and Communication Overhead

Abstract

Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANETs) are deployed quickly without the pre-existing infrastructure as other networks are created with proper infrastructure. Clustering offers hierarchical organization of mobile nodes by forming disjoint groups called clusters. The problem of scalability arises with increase in both mobility and the network size and in such cases clustering comes to rescue. Thus clustering, as a typical hierarchy, solves the issue of scalability in large dynamic MANETs, however it requires extra message exchange among mobile nodes for the cluster structure maintenance. The stability of cluster is greatly affected and it leads to the ripple effect of reclustering. This approach can eliminate the frozen period requirement and minimize the process of reclustering.