Driver’s Social Relationship Based Clustering and Transmission in Vehicle Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs)

Abstract

Clustering is a technique for dividing a network into different group of nodes and managing the transmission of data among the interacting nodes, to improve the effectiveness and safety of information transfer. Clustering have been well studied and applied in traditional mobile networks. However, vehicle networks have short connection time, frequently changing topology, and other unique properties that conventional clustering cannot transfer well. The vehicle nodes in Vehicle Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) are most directly affected by the surrounding vehicle nodes and exchanged information with them. However, this will cause network congestion or even the spread of malicious messages. The inclusion of vehicle’s (driver’s) social relationships in vehicle communication clustering will increase the degree of trust between vehicle nodes, making communication more purposeful and accurate. This study proposed a new clustering for vehicle networks that is based on drivers’ social relationship combined with the instantaneous position and speed of the vehicle node. Simulation results showed that this clustering method can improve the effectiveness of information transmission and increase the utilization of the application layer.