An enhanced sectorized clustering scheme based on transmission range for MANETS

A Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of two or more mobile devices (e.g. PDAs, laptop, cell phones, etc.) with multi-hop wireless communication. Clustering has evolved as an important research topic in MANETs as it improves the system performance of large MANETs. Due to the dynamic nature of the mobile nodes, their association and disassociation to and from clusters perturb the stability of the network and the problem becomes worse if these nodes are cluster heads. Eventually, the clustering stability in MANET would be significantly affected. To enhance the network stability, in this paper we introduce an Enhanced Sectorized Clustering Scheme based on Transmission Range for MANETS (ESCS), that pays special attention to the selection of a suitable node for the role of cluster head and the formation of cluster. An Enhanced Sectorized clustering scheme is achieved by electing a cluster head based on residual energy along with the staying time of nodes and the cluster is formed based on the transmission range of the cluster head. The simulation results of NS2 show that the proposed clustering scheme can reduce the average number of re-affiliations and increase the stability of the cluster.