Adaptive Hello Interval in FANET Routing Protocols for Green UAVs

Abstract

With the recent advances in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the development of energy-efficient networking technology for mission-oriented multiple cooperative UAVs has become crucial. Routing in flying ad-hoc networks (FANETs) with UAVs is a challenging issue because of the high speed and sudden changes in direction of UAVs. Traditional routing protocols in FANETs periodically send hello messages for the establishment and maintenance of the routes. However, sending hello messages periodically after a fixed interval increases bandwidth wastage when the hello interval is excessively short or causes long delays in neighbour discovery when the hello interval is overly long. Moreover, several disconnected UAV groups have been observed in which the group members are connected among themselves but detached from the main network. By exchanging excessive hello messages inside the group, the UAVs maintain an unnecessary neighbourhood, causing wastage of energy. However, FANETs have certain advantages, such as knowledge about mission-related information. To solve the problem of unnecessary energy drain, we propose a novel adaptive hello interval scheme-energy efficient hello (EE-Hello)-based on available mission-related information, such as the volume of the allowed airspace, number of UAVs, UAV transmission range, and UAV speed. We present a method to decide the distance that a UAV needs to travel before sending a hello message. We also specify a technique to determine the number of UAVs necessary to achieve specific network requirements, such as packet delivery ratio or throughput, with the expenditure of minimum energy. We show that the proposed EE-Hello can save about 25% of the energy currently used, by suppressing unnecessary hello messages without degrading the overall network throughput.