Blockchain Assisted Chaotic Chameleon Swarm Optimization Based Clustering Technique in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

– Vehicular Ad Hoc network (VANET) has group of stationary or moving vehicles linked via wireless networks. Clustering in VANET is used to enhance network efficiency, scalability, and performance. By aggregating vehicles into clusters, communication overhead was decreased, and the network was managed with a greater count of vehicles. Moreover, clustering supports minimizing inter-cluster communication and decreasing congestion, therefore enhancing network reliability. The cluster head (CH) has the responsibility to manage communication in the cluster and forward communications to other clusters. In recent times, Blockchain (BC) technology has been executed to VANETs for enhancing privacy and security. A BC-based scheme is utilized for recording transactions like the change of data amongst vehicles from the secure and tamper-proof method. This makes sure that data cannot be falsified or altered and that the authenticity of data is verified. Therefore, this study develops a Blockchain Assisted Chaotic Chameleon Swarm Optimization based Energy Aware Clustering (BCCSO-EAC) technique in VANET. The presented BCCSO-EAC technique constructs clusters and selects CHs using a fitness function comprising residual energy (RE), node degree (ND), and intra-cluster distance parameters. The BCCSO-EAC technique selects CHs in such that the load among the nodes gets distributed properly. Moreover, BC technology was carried out to enable secure inter-cluster and intra-cluster VANET communication. The experimental result analysis of the BCCSO-EAC method is tested under various measures. The outcomes stated the improved results of the BCCSO-EAC technique over other recent approaches in terms of different evaluation metrics.