ELECTING A LEADER NODE IN A MOBILE AD-HOC COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

摘要

A method and apparatus for electing a leader node in a mobile ad-hoc communications network (MANET). The MANET comprises a plurality of nodes, each node being associated with a selection policy value (SPV). An initiating node sends towards a receiving node in the MANET a first message requesting an identity of a node in the MANET and a SPV associated with the node in the MANET. The first message instructs the receiving node to forward the first message towards any neighbouring nodes of the receiving node. The initiating node receives a second message comprising an identity of the node in the MANET and the SPV associated with the node. A comparison is made between any received SPVs and a SPV associated with the initiating node to determine an optimum SPV. The node in the MANET having the optimum SPV is elected as the leader node.