An Efficient Cluster Management Protocol using GPS Based Geographic Clustering with Surrogate Cluster-heads for a Large Ad hoc Network

We believe that it is not a trivial job to maintain and manage clusters in a highly mobile ad hoc scenario where host mobility and changes in node activity status causes frequent and unpredictable topological changes. It requires continuous and efficient management protocol for frequent up-dation and re-clustering which are costly in a resource-poor environment. This maintenance process may even degrade the performance of the network as a whole. In this context, we describe a convenient cluster management protocol that incurs very little communication overhead for maintaining a stable cluster structure. Our protocol defines a geographical boundary for each cluster using GPS information that enables the mobile nodes to get alarmed while crossing the cluster boundary and generate timely cluster bind requests. Here a cluster-head is also free to leave its cluster after delegating the leadership to any member-node.. This member-node now will act as a surrogate cluster-head of the cluster. The simulation results indicate that this mechanism reduces as much as 30% of the overhead traffics involved in cluster maintenance Thus the network performance metrics such as throughput and delay that are tightly coupled with the overhead of cluster management will get improved.