CBL: a Clustering Scheme for VANETs
Résumé
Routing protocols for vehicular ad hoc networks resort to clustering to optimize network performance. In existing proposals, cluster-heads are chosen based on various metrics such as the number of its direct neighbors, the quality of the links, etc. Other clustering techniques consider the geographic environment of the roads, and they choose one cluster-head for each space subdivision. The clustering scheme proposed in this work combines the information on road configuration, vehicle mobility and link quality in order to build a structure similar to vehicular network infrastructure, while relying only on the vehicles. The evaluations show that this scheme allows creating and maintaining during a significant time a small number of stable connected groups, in most cases, just one in each traffic direction. This clustering scheme can be integrated into any reactive, proactive, or geographic ad hoc routing protocol in order to optimize the flooding and simplify route maintenance. And it allows the routing protocol to operate without any global location information service.