A Multihoming Clustering Algorithm for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Clustering in vehicular ad hoc networks is an effective approach to make dynamic wireless vehicular sensor networks more manageable and stable. To make vehicle clustering applicable everywhere regardless of the provided infrastructure, vehicles must rely only on themselves and must not take any supporting services, such as location or external communication services, for granted. In this paper, we propose a new clustering metric and a clustering algorithm with multihoming support. It relies only on the vehicle's ability to send and receive wireless packets which identify the vehicle relationship. Clusters are created with redundant connections between nodes to increase the communication reliability in case of topological changes and the cluster creation process is also inverted compared to other algorithms. The presented solution is verified and compared to MOBIC with the use of ns-3 and SUMO simulation tools. Simulation results have confirmed the expected behavior and show that our algorithm achieves better node connectivity and cluster stability than the former.