aspg-2-804-1791417125 20261007235205 American Scientific Publishing Group admin@americaspg.com American Scientific Publishing Group Journal of Cybersecurity and Information Management JCIM 2769-7851 2690-6775 2021 7 2 Mohamed Elhoseny CoVIS Lab, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of North Texas, USA X. Yuan CoVIS Lab, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of North Texas, USA Energy efficiency is a significant challenge in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) design where the nodes move randomly with limited energy, leading to acceptable topology modifications. Clustering is a widely applied technique to accomplish energy efficiency in MANET. Therefore, this paper designs a new energy-efficient clustering protocol using an enhanced rain optimization algorithm (EECP-EROA) for MANET. The EROA technique is derived by integrating the Levy flight concept to the ROA to enhance global exploration abilities. In addition, the EECP-EROA technique intends to proficiently select CHs and the nearby nodes linked to the CH to generate clusters. Moreover, the EECP-EROA technique has derived an objective function with different input parameters. To showcase the superior performance of the EECP-EROA technique, a brief set of simulations takes place, and the results are inspected under varying aspects. The experimental values pointed out the betterment of the EECP-EROA technique over the other methods. 2021 85 94 804 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 10.54216/JCIM.070201 https://www.americaspg.com/journal/2/article/804 https://www.americaspg.com/storage/2504.pdf