Fault-tolerance of cluster Management in MANETs by Assistant and Mobile Agents

Abstract

Most researches today trend to clustering in ad hoc networks as a solution to the management problem in flat ad hoc networks. Clustering aims to choose suitable nodes to lead the network ie cluster heads. When a cluster head fails, re-clustering is needed. But, this will be costly due to the characteristics of the ad hoc networks such as mobility and power exhaustion. In this research, we developed a fault tolerance mechanism to avoid re-clustering and other drawbacks that result from losing the Cluster Head (CH). A Mobile Agent (MA) will be responsible of carrying out the jobs of the CH ie the CH will host the MA which will be the real manager of the cluster. Also, the closest node to the CH will be chosen as an assistant and the MA will update the assistant. Each of the CH and the assistant will have Remote Objects (RO) to communicate with each other. The main jobs of the assistant are to temporarily replace the CH when fails; then it will choose the next CH based on the clustering algorithm. Simulation results show enhancing the performance of using an assistant, MA and RO.