*Author for correspondence Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol 9(37), DOI: 10.17485/ijst/2016/v9i37/93879, October 2016 ISSN (Print) : 0974-6846 ISSN (Online) : 0974-5645 Cluster Head Selection Procedure using Priority based Technique in VANET Aditya Upadhyay and Manoj Sindhwani* Department of ECE, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara - 144411, Punjab, India; aditya12june@gmail.com, manoj.16133@lpu.co.in Keywords: High Degree Algorithm, Medium Access Control (MAC) Protocol, Prediction based Algorithm, Vehicular Ad- hoc Network (VANET) Abstract Objectives: To improve in the MAC protocol channel sensing mechanism for data transmission from source to destination to improve the throughput and overcome the delay of the network. Methods: High degree algorithm is proposed for selection of the Cluster Head under MAC protocol. We have compared the prediction-based algorithm and high degree algorithm with throughput, delay, packet loss, jitter and Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR). Findings: Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) is the self-organizing type of network and a subclass of Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET), in which vehicular nodes can move or leave the network when they want. Due to decentralized nature of VANET, security, routing and Quality of Services are major issues which arise in the network and leads to increase the delay with continuously link break in the communication of vehicular nodes. Medium Access Control (MAC), layer helps in the fast transmission of the packets from one node to another. Therefore, the technique of MAC protocol works on Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Request to Send (RTS) and Clear to Send (CTS) packets which will increase the routing overhead due to the extra exchange of packets in the network. So to overcome this issue, we have designed high degree algorithm and compared with prediction based algorithm using the time constraints of throughput, delay, packet loss, jitter and PDR which conclude that the high degree algorithm is better than prediction based algorithm. Improvements: Throughput, PDR, jitter, packet loss and delay are compared and the result shows improvement using high degree algorithm rather than prediction based algorithm. 1. Introduction VANET is a wireless network where all the vehicular nodes communicate with each other. VANET is divided into two categories, Vehicular to Vehicular (V2V) and Vehicular to Infrastructure (V2I), V2V communication takes place in between the vehicular nodes with random mobility and V2I communication is in between the vehicular node and infrastructure based Road Side Unit (RSU). RSU is a fixed communication antenna on the road side for better wire- less links. Inter-vehicle communication provides driver comfort and road safety 1 . VANET is self-ruling and self- organizing wireless communication network, where any node can act as a server-client. ere is also a possibil- ity that any node may join or leave the network anytime. e architecture of VANET network is divided into three parts pure ad-hoc, pure cellular and hybrid. Routing is the main phenomenon to transfer the information from source node to the destination node. e topology of the VANET is continuously changing with the node mobility. It is more important to maintain the route of the pack- ets from hop to hop. erefore, to overcome the routing issues different routing protocols were proposed. ey are as follows: 1.1 Topology-based Routing Protocol e protocol uses medium information for forwarding the packets from source to destination in the network. ey are further divided into two parts 2 :