Enhanced collaborative networking protocol based on clustering mechanism for UV networks

Developing a highly efficient multi-node media access control protocol tailored for ultraviolet (UV) networks poses a significant challenge. While our team's UV random-access collaborative networking protocol, utilizing time-division multiple access (UVCN-TDMA), has been instrumental, its scalability is hindered by the number of network nodes. To address this limitation and facilitate large-scale UV node networking, this study advances the UVCN protocol by introducing an enhanced collaborative networking protocol known as the enhanced collaborative clustering mechanism (eCOCM). This study examined the impact of network topology, various data services, and the number of cluster nodes on network performance within the proposed eCOCM framework. Additionally, a comparative analysis between the eCOCM protocol and conventional clustering systems was conducted. The findings demonstrate notable enhancements across key performance metrics including throughput, packet loss rate, delay, and channel utilization. Finally, functional experiments were conducted under two distinct network scenarios to validate the efficacy of the proposed protocol. This study addresses the immediate challenges in UV multi-node networking and offers pragmatic insights to steer its development forward.