A Mobility-Aware General-Purpose Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network Clustering Scheme

Clustering is an effective method of topology control for wireless ad-hoc networks. Clusters introduce a structure in a flat network and can guarantee some basic levels of performance in presence of high mobility and large number of nodes. Therefore clusters can effectively increase the network capacity by the spatial reuse of network resources. Robust clustering schemes designed specifically for VANETs must address cluster stability and the high-mobility exhibited by the nodes, while reducing communication and computational costs. This paper presents a distributed multi-hop clustering scheme designed for VANETs, which utilizes mobility information to generate a stable cluster structure, maintained through the propagation of periodic DSRC safety messages. Our scheme takes the directionality of VANET nodes into consideration, where clusters are formed only between vehicles exhibiting a similar mobility pattern. Simulation results confirm that the execution of our scheme, due to its features, increases the average cluster lifetime and stability, and reduces the amount of communication and processing needed to form stable cluster structures in VANETs.