Guaranteeing Asymptotic Stability of Clustering for MANET by Autonomous Decentralized Structure Formation Mechanism Based on Local Interaction

One useful tool in responding to wide-scale disasters is the MANET (Mobile Ad hoc Network), it is created by network terminals connecting directly to each other with no permanent network infrastructure. Clustering mechanisms for ad hoc networks have been proposed for power-saving and load-balancing. Moreover, maintenance (guaranteeing the stability) of cluster structure is an important issue in addition to realizing power-saving and load-balancing. We have proposed autonomous decentralized structure formation technology based on the local-interaction of terminals, and we have used the proposed structure formation technology to create an autonomous decentralized clustering method of ad hoc networks. However, although this technology can yield a cluster structure, it is not clear whether that structure is stable over long periods (guaranteed asymptotic stability). If asymptotic stability is missing, it is difficult to appropriately reconfigure the cluster structure in the face of the network topology changes caused by large-scale movement of node groups. In this paper, we propose a means of guaranteeing the asymptotic stability of the cluster structures created in autonomous decentralized manner. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the proposed solution in terms of guaranteeing asymptotic stability in MANET.