QoS based Cluster Head Election Algorithm for Managing Multimedia Traffic over MANETs using ACO

Abstract

In large Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANET), cluster formation has been veri fied to be a promising approach in densely populated environment. The salient characteristics of MANETs are dynamic topology, energy constrained nodes, bandwidth-constrained and of variable capacity links. Clustering methods allow fast connection, stability in network topol- ogy, provide better routing, reduces control overhead and also improve network performance parameters like routing delay, bandwidth consumption and throughput. In MANET, topol- ogy changes dynamically so, to achieve good performance any clustering algorithm should operate with minimum overhead of cluster maintenance and try to preserve its structure as much as possible. Clustering in MANET requires an adaptive and fast solution to nd cluster heads. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), a meta-heuristic is one of the fast solutions to this problem. ACO is highly suitable for adaptive and fast routing solutions to MANET type of environment. So, ACO is used to optimize the cluster head election technique. It is expected to identify cluster head, based on Weighted Clustering approach using ACO and to show performance analysis.