A Fault-Local Self-Stabilizing Clustering Service for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

We present a fast, local clustering service, FLOC, that partitions a multihop wireless network into nonoverlapping and approximately equal-sized clusters. Each cluster has a clusterhead such that all nodes within unit distance and some nodes within distance m of the clusterhead belong to the cluster. We show that, by asserting a stretch factor m ges 2, FLOC achieves locality of clustering and fault-local self-stabilization: the effects of cluster formation and faults/changes at any part of the network are contained within at most m + 1 units. Through simulations and experiments with actual deployments, we analyze the trade-offs between clustering time and the quality of clustering and suggest suitable parameters for FLOC to achieve a fast completion time without compromising the quality of the resulting clustering