As a hierarchical network framework, clustering aims to divide nodes with similar mobility characteristics into the same cluster to form a more structured hierarchical network, which can effectively solve the problem of high dynamics of the network topology caused by the high-speed movement of nodes in aeronautical ad hoc networks. Based on this goal, we propose a multi-hop distributed clustering algorithm based on link duration. The algorithm is based on the idea of multi-hop clustering, which ensures the coverage and stability of clustering. In the clustering phase, the link duration is used to accurately measure the degree of stability between nodes. At the same time, we also use the link duration threshold to filter out relatively stable links and use the gravity factor to let nodes set conditions for actively creating links based on neighbor distribution. When selecting the cluster head, we select the most stable node as the cluster head node based on the defined node stability weight. The node stability weight comprehensively considers the connectivity degree of nodes and the link duration between nodes. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we compare them with the N-hop and K-means algorithms from four indicators: average cluster head duration, average cluster member duration, number of cluster head changes, and average number of intra-cluster link changes. Experiments show that the proposed method can effectively improve the stability of the topology.

In this paper, an analytical model is proposed to compute the optimal number of clusters that minimizes the energy consumption of multi-hop wireless sensor networks. In the proposed analytical model, the average hop count between a general node (GN) and its nearest clusterhead (CH) is obtained assuming a uniform distribution. How the position of the sink impacts the optimal number of clusters is also discussed. A numerical simulation is carried out to validate the proposed model in various network environments.