{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,9]],"date-time":"2026-03-09T15:45:53Z","timestamp":1773071153514,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":26,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2016,4,6]],"date-time":"2016-04-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1459900800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In recent years, there has emerged applications of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) towards security, safety, rescue, exploration, military and communication redundancy systems in non-populated areas, besides its ordinary use in urban environments as an essential part of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). This paper proposes a novel algorithm for the process of organizing a cluster structure and cluster head election (CHE) suitable for VANETs. Moreover, it presents a robust clustering-based routing protocol, which is appropriate for deserts and can achieve high communication efficiency, ensuring reliable information delivery and optimal exploitation of the equipment on each vehicle. A comprehensive simulation is conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed CHE and routing algorithms.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s16040478","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2016,4,6]],"date-time":"2016-04-06T12:54:18Z","timestamp":1459947258000},"page":"478","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":42,"title":["VANET Clustering Based Routing Protocol Suitable for Deserts"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6970-2727","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mohammed","family":"Mohammed Nasr","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China"},{"name":"School of Information Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6037-5259","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Abdeldime","family":"Abdelgader","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Information Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China"},{"name":"Electrical and Computer Department, College of Engineering, Karary University, Khartoum 12304, Sudan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Zhi-Gong","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Information Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Lian-Feng","family":"Shen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,4,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11","DOI":"10.1109\/TPDS.2011.102","article-title":"Adaptive forwarding delay control for VANET data aggregation","volume":"23","author":"Yu","year":"2012","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. 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