Link availability based mobility-aware Max-Min multi-hop clustering (M ⁴C) for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) have inherently dynamic topologies. Due to the distributed, multi-hop nature of these networks, random mobility of nodes not only affects the availability of radio links between particular node pairs, but also threatens the reliability of communication paths, service discovery, even quality of service of MANETs. In this paper, a novel Markov chain model is presented to predict link availability for MANETs. Based on a rough estimation of the initial distance between two nodes, the proposed approach is able to accurately estimate link availability in a random mobility environment. Furthermore, the proposed link availability estimation approach is integrated into Max-Min dclustering heuristic. The enhanced clustering heuristic, called M⁴C, takes node mobility into account when it groups mobile nodes into clusters. Simulation results are given to verify the approach and the performance improvement of clustering algorithm. It also demonstrates the adaptability of M⁴C, and shows that M⁴C is able to achieve a tradeoff between the effectiveness of topology aggregation and cluster stabilities. The proposed algorithm can also be used to improve the availability and quality of services for MANETs. Copyright © 2009 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers.