A Dynamic Energy Efficient Clustering Algorithm for MANETs

This paper proposes a dynamic energy efficient clustering algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). The proposed algorithm elects first the nodes that have a higher energy and less mobility as cluster-heads, then periodically monitors the cluster-heads´ energy and locally alters the network topology or the clusters to increase the network lifetime by reducing the energy consumption of the suffering cluster-heads. The algorithm employs two dynamically-computed energy thresholds: a yellow threshold that is used to achieve some sort of local load balancing by distributing the load equally among the adjacent cluster-heads, and a red threshold that is used to trigger local re-clustering in the network. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperformed the weight clustering approach found in the literature.