Clustering wireless ad hoc networks with weakly connected dominating set

The increasing popular personal communications and mobile computing require a wireless network infrastructure that supports self-configuration and self-management. Efficient clustering protocol for constructing virtual backbone is becoming one of the most important issues in wireless ad hoc networks. The weakly connected dominating set (WCDS) is very suitable for cluster formation. As finding the minimum WCDS in an arbitrary graph is a NP-Hard problem, we propose an area-based distributed algorithm for WCDS construction in wireless ad hoc networks with time and message complexity O(n). This Area algorithm is divided into three phases: area partition, WCDS construction for each area and adjustment along the area borders. We confirm the effectiveness of our algorithm through analysis and comprehensive simulation study. The number of nodes in the WCDS constructed by this Area algorithm is up to around 50% less than that constructed by the previous well-known algorithm.