An efficient energy aware clusterhead formation infrastructure protocol for MANETs

In this paper, we propose a novel cluster-based infrastructure creation protocol, namely: warning energy aware clusterhead (WEAC). WEAC establishes a dynamic wireless mobile infrastructure. As in all cluster-based infrastructure protocols, in the WEAC protocol, a mobile node is elected from a set of nominees to act as a temporary base station for a period of time within its zone. We study the characteristics and performance of the WEAC protocol by means of simulation. It is shown that the WEAC protocol scales well to large networks of mobile stations, and it outperforms other routing energy saving amongst the network. The WEAC protocol would facilitate the development of a comprehensive and promising framework for quality of service (QoS) management in wireless mobile ad hoc networks once the proper integration of the MAC protocol with the routing and call admission control mechanisms is established. At that time, it would lay the groundwork for assigning bandwidth, and/or implementing priorities, and hence for QoS-based routing by conveying the quality of a path prior to call setup.