Optimising gateway selection using node lifetime and inter-node interference in cluster-based MANETs

This paper presents a novel gateway selection approach by constructing a Minimum Connected Dominating Set (MCDS) along with delivering a Quality-of-Service (QoS) to optimise inter-cluster communication in cluster-based MANETs. The proposed approach aims to find the MCDS by implementing a distributed non-greedy Affinity Propagation-driven Multiple Weighted Clustering technique followed by co-operative selection of gateways using QoS metrics. The QoS metric considered in this approach is a weighted aggregate of node lifespan and inter-node interference particularly directed to choose nodes having higher longevity and enduring minimum interference as the gateways. The simulation results in NS2 reveal that the proposed approach scales down the MCDS by 26% and realises 18% and 21% better energy efficiency and bandwidth utilisation respectively during inter-cluster communication.