A genetic annealing hybrid algorithm based clustering strategy in mobile ad hoc network

A MANET (mobile ad hoc network) is a collection of wireless mobile nodes dynamically forming a temporary communication network without the use of any existing infrastructure or centralized administration. It is characterized by both highly dynamic network topology and limited energy. So, the efficiency of MANET depends not only on its control protocol, but also on its topology and energy management. A clustering strategy can improve the performance of flexibility and scalability in the network. With the aid of graph theory and a genetic annealing hybrid optimization algorithm, this paper proposes a new clustering strategy to perform topology management and energy conservation. A performance comparison is made between the original algorithms and our algorithm, named genetic algorithm and simulated annealing based clustering strategy (GASA-CS for short), in the aspects of average cluster number, topology stability, load balance and network lifetime. The experimental results show that our GASA-CS has a better performance on average.