Weight-based clustering algorithm for mobile ad hoc network

Clustering has often been used to impose structure in wireless ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose a novel weight-based clustering algorithm (NWBCA) that tries to increase the stability of the created clusters. It takes into consideration the mean connectivity degree (MCD) and energy status of the mobile nodes. The concept of MCD of nodes is firstly introduced and the calculation of MCD is also proposed. To balance the energy consumption among the nodes, energy status of the mobile nodes is firstly quantified and calculation method of energy status of the nodes is proposed in this paper. The non-periodic procedure for clusterhead election is invoked on-demand, and is aimed to reduce the computation and communication costs. Simulation experiments are carried out to validate our algorithm. All results show that our algorithm performs better than existing ones and is also tunable to different kinds of network conditions.