Stable dynamic feedback-based predictive clustering protocol for vehicular Ad hoc networks

Scalability presents a significant challenge in vehicular communication, particularly when there is no hierarchical structure in place to manage the increasing number of vehicles. As the number of vehicles increases, they may encounter the broadcast storm problem, which can cause network congestion and reduce communication efficiency. Clustering can solve these issues, but due to high vehicle mobility, clustering in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET) suffers from stability issues. Most of the existing clustering protocols are optimized for highways only and some protocols are optimized for intersections only. The clusters that are created by the protocols which are optimized for highways breakdown at the intersections where clustering is needed more. On the other hand, the clusters that are created by the protocols optimized for intersections create extra clusters or break unnecessary on straight-roads which reduces cluster stability. Moreover, the lack of intelligent use of a combination of the mobility parameters, such as direction, movement, position, velocity, degree of vehicle, and movement at the intersection, also contributes to cluster stability problems. A dynamic clustering protocol that efficiently combines all the mobility parameters can resolve these issues in VANETs by providing stability in both intersections and highways. To achieve high stability in VANET clustering, a Stable Dynamic feedback-based Predictive Clustering (SDPC) protocol is proposed for VANET to ensure cluster stability in both highway and intersection scenarios. SDPC considers vehicle relative velocity, acceleration, position, distance, transmission range, moving direction at the intersection, and vehicle density to create a cluster. The cluster head is selected based on the future position of the vehicles, relative distance between vehicles, movement of vehicles at the intersection, degree of vehicles, and probable cluster head duration. The performance of SDPC is compared with four existing VANET clustering protocols in various road topologies, in terms of the average cluster head change rate, the average duration of cluster head, the average duration of cluster member, and the average clustering overhead. The simulation results show that SDPC outperforms the existing protocols, achieving higher clustering stability in terms of cluster head change rate (50%), cluster head duration (15%), cluster member duration (6%), and clustering overhead (35%).