Cluster based routing protocol for public safety networks

Recently, Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) have attracted huge attention in the field of public safety networks to realize a number of functionalities such as early warning, aiding the rescue and relief operations. First responder,s ability to communicate information among themselves and the supervisor greatly influences the success of the rescue operation. Therefore, a fast, reliable and robust communication system is desired to support the public safety rescue operations. Typical, public safety rescue operation consists of rescue workers grouped in the form of teams that work together and an authority that oversees the entire rescue operation. Keeping in mind the working of public safety rescue operation in the form of teams, this paper proposes a cluster based routing protocol for the public safety network. The selection of cluster head is based upon the residual energy and number of connections of a node, whereas the next hop to base station is selected based upon residual energy, number of connections and number of hops to base station. The data is aggregated at the cluster head and then forwarded to the base station. The simulation results are very promising as the proposed scheme outperforms other routing protocols.