A distributed group mobility adaptive clustering algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks

This paper proposes a distributed group mobility adaptive (DGMA) clustering algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) on the basis of a revised group mobility metric, linear distance based spatial dependency (LDSD), which is derived from the linear distance of a node’s movement instead of its instantaneous speed and direction. In particular, it is suitable for group mobility pattern where group partitions and mergence are prevalent behaviors of mobile groups. The proposed clustering scheme aims to form more stable clusters by prolonging cluster lifetime and reducing the clustering iterations even in highly dynamic environment. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed framework is superior to two widely referenced clustering approaches, the Lowest-ID clustering scheme and the mobility based clustering algorithm MOBIC, in terms of average clusterhead lifetime, average resident time, average number of clusterhead changes, and average number of cluster reaffiliations.