%0 Conference Proceedings %F JEMILI_2009_HAL-00414762_1 %A Jemili, Imen %A Belghith, Abdelfattah %A Mosbah, Mohamed %T {E}xploiting a clustering mechanism for power saving in ad hoc networks: {P}erformance evaluation %B {AICCSA} 2009 {IEEE}/{ACS} {I}nternational {C}onference on {C}omputer {S}ystems and {A}pplications, 2009. {AICCSA} 2009 %P 717-724 %I {IEEE} {C}omputer {S}cience %C {R}abat {M}aroc %X {D}esigning power aware protocols becomes a pre-requisite to conserve energy and extend network life time. {I}n fact, many target applications may require such features when being deployed for long periods in hostile environments, such as rescue or military operations. {T}o assure power saving while preserving network capacity, relaying on a virtual backbone seems a promising approach. {T}hrough keeping a subset of nodes active for communication tasks, we allow other nodes to switch to sleep mode reducing consequently energy waste. {H}owever, the benefits of clustering come at a cost in terms of time and the prohibitive overhead incurred during the clusters' establishment and maintenance. {I}n this paper, we investigate the influence of the underlying clustering algorithm on the performance of a power saving mechanism. {T}he conducted simulations confirm the importance given to the choice of an efficient clustering algorithm to achieve energy efficiency while preserving network capacity %U http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00414762/en/ %D 2009