Location-Based Clustering Approach for Next-Hop Selection in Opportunistic Networks

Opportunistic network (OppNet) is a subset of Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) and a kind of Delay Tolerant Network (DTN), formed by wirelessly connected nodes that are mobile in nature. The routes established by such networks for data transmission is dynamic in nature. This leads to challenges for researchers to develop routing protocols to transmit messages in OppNet. This work proposes a novel routing protocol for forwarding messages from source to destination in OppNet, so-called location-based clustering approach for next-hop selection in opportunistic networks (LBC). In this proposed work, several cluster points are identified within the network where more nodes generally gather. During message transmission, distance between the cluster of the neighbour node of sender and that of destination is calculated. If this distance lies within a specified threshold, packet is forwarded to that node. The proposed model is compared with existing work—Epidemic, Prophet, Encounter and Distance-based Routing (EDR) and Encounter Buffer and Contact duration-based Routing (EBC) protocols, to name a few. It is found from simulations that in terms of average latency, LBC outperforms Epidemic, Prophet, EDR and EBC, respectively, by 12.46%, 10.63%, 35.9% and 15.38%, when the number of nodes is increased.