A Clustering Algorithm Based on Zone in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) is a wireless mobile ad hoc networks established on the inter-vehicle communication. Due to the special characteristics and the restrictions of roads, VANET shows characteristics of uneven nodes density, fast moving, high dynamic topology. So it is difficult to establish a stable link between nodes, and the reliability of data transmission declines rapidly with the increase of hops. Therefore, ensuring data reliability and rapid distribution is always a difficult point in the VANET research. Through analysis of vehicular ad hoc networks environment, we propose the node connectivity and the connectivity strength. By dividing the road environment into the segment area and the intersection area, respectively calculating and predicting the connectivity according to the road environment, we propose the zone based adaptive clustering algorithm (ZACA).