  This paper presents an effective algorithm for selecting cluster heads in
mobile ad hoc networks using ant colony optimization. A cluster in an ad hoc
network consists of a cluster head and cluster members which are at one hop
away from the cluster head. The cluster head allocates the resources to its
cluster members. Clustering in MANET is done to reduce the communication
overhead and thereby increase the network performance. A MANET can have many
clusters in it. This paper presents an algorithm which is a combination of the
four main clustering schemes- the ID based clustering, connectivity based,
probability based and the weighted approach. An Ant colony optimization based
approach is used to minimize the number of clusters in MANET. This can also be
considered as a minimum dominating set problem in graph theory. The algorithm
considers various parameters like the number of nodes, the transmission range
etc. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is an effective
methodology for finding out the minimum number of cluster heads.
