Title: An enhanced priority-based multi-hop clustering algorithm for vehicular ad hoc networks

Authors: S. Rakhi; Kanakanahalli Ramanna Shobha

Addresses: Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Atria Institute of Technology, Bangalore, India ' Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore, India

Abstract: The importance of intelligence transportation system is increasing as it improves road safety and efficacy by means of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). The nodes in VANET are intelligent machines that can communicate with each other. Due to high mobility and frequent network fragmentation, stability is always a challenge in VANET. Even though traditional clustering methods address this issue, they exhibit less stability in highly dynamic scenarios. To improve the stability of the clusters, a new multi-hop clustering method named enhanced priority-based multi-hop clustering algorithm (EPMCA) is proposed. The best neighbours are chosen using neighbour following method. Then, stable clusters are established based on the average velocity of the cluster and the association lifetime between the nodes by the cluster head. The proposed algorithm shows significant improvement in average cluster head and cluster member duration, average cluster head changes, and number of clusters for varying communication ranges compared to existing techniques.

Keywords: vehicles; stability; cluster; priority; multi-hop; vehicular ad hoc networks; VANET; enhanced priority-based multi-hop clustering algorithm; EPMCA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCNDS.2024.135097

International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems, 2024 Vol.30 No.1, pp.42 - 69

Received: 26 Oct 2022
Accepted: 06 Dec 2022
Published online: 30 Nov 2023 *

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