Weighted Clustering Algorithm for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

The article describes the importance of ad hoc networks in locations that are not covered by backbone wireless networks. The methods of networked described use sets of clusters which are nodes controlled by a single clusterhead and those are pulled together into dominant sets. The network is set to change dynamically and so the clusterheads are determined based on heuristics. The network also attempts to change the network structure in the minimum amount possible so as to reduce the amount of computation time restructuring the network. The network is restructured by a Weighted Clustering Algorithm WCA for short. The algorithm uses transmission range to determine the graph set of the clusterheads. New nodes connect to the dominant set and if one can join the network but not to a member of the dominant set then the dominant set is restructured. The dominant set is to consist of the minimum number of nodes possible determined by the range of each of the nodes to obtain a lower bound. In order to restructure the nodes most efficiently, the nodes are updated as rarely as possible. The nodes are clustered so that the efficiency of no node is over used. Finally, the battery power and mobility of the node are taken into account because you want the most stable network most commonly.
The algorithm would be extremely useful for our network in the general sense except that in our network, every single node is a clusterhead. We have no need to restructure the network since every single node connects to as many nearby nodes as it can. This results in extra network update requests being forwarded in some cases but allows us to never have to restructure the network so long as they are connected. We can however use a similar algorithm to attempt reconnecting if a node falls off the network. This would allow nodes that loose one connection to possibly connect to another node on the network. However, we can only connect to paired nodes so that means we must check both the paired list and network list to determine if we can connect to a node at all and if not we can open up the search for network and pairing menu for the user.