Robust clustering for connected vehicles using local network criticality

This paper proposes a robust Criticality-based Clustering Algorithm (CCA) for Vehicular Ad Hoc NETworks (VANETs) based on the concept of network criticality. Network criticality is a global metric on an undirected graph, that quantifies the robustness of the graph against environmental changes such as topology. In this paper, we localize the notion of network criticality and apply it to control cluster formation in the vehicular wireless network. We use the localized notion of node criticality together with a universal link measure, Link Expiration Time (LET), to derive a distributed multi-hop clustering algorithm for VANETs. Simulation results show that the proposed CCA forms robust cluster structures.