An RSU-assisted Cluster Head Selection and Backup Protocol

In VANET, vehicles moving on the highway usually form clusters, and the wireless communications between vehicles are generally conducted by cluster heads. In most cluster-based protocols, however, the cluster head selection carried out through inter-cluster communications has some limitations, e.g., large communication and computation cost, quite complex algorithms, requirement of additional devices and so on. Another potential problem is that the connection between two adjacent cluster heads may be lost due to vehicle´s high mobility, which drastically degrades the communication quality. Observing the fact that the road side unit can gather and process more traffic information, in this paper, we propose an RSU-assisted cluster head selection and backup protocol to tackle the above problems. Our protocol can simplify cluster-based protocols with the help of the road side unit. We model the vehicle´s movement in a mathematical way and validate the feasibility of our protocol through extensive simulations. The results show that it can greatly improve the data reception rate, and the cluster head backup accuracy is high.