Cross layer design for mobile Ad-Hoc Unmanned Aerial Vehicle communication networks

Abstract

A Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) is a popular type of wireless network that is formed by a collection of mobile nodes. Each node in such network has the capability to communicate with its neighbors and non-neighbors through a wireless medium without using any existing network infrastructure. Due to the lack of infrastructure, all nodes in Ad-Hoc network are designed to act as an end system and a router for other nodes. Traditionally, the dominant design methodology for the network protocols is based on an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model. This methodology divided the stack into seven layers where each layer operates independently. Due to the dynamics of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Ad-Hoc network, the layered architecture is not flexible enough to achieve certain quality of services (QoS) required by some applications. To overcome the limitations of the layering technique, cross-layering approach is used in this paper so to adjust some key parameters in the first three layers based on the aircraft attitude variations (pitch, roll and yaw), hence we can enhance the performance of such networks. To that respect, directional antenna is going to be used by the UAVs to extend the coverage area and reduce the number of hops. Meanwhile, we designed a new Medium Access Control (MAC) scheme that adapts its parameters based on the channel bit error rate which is indeed affected by the new antenna system and aircraft attitude. we called this scheme Intelligent Medium Access Control Protocol for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (IMAC UAV). As for the routing protocol, We developed the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol (OLSR) so that the decision for selecting the route will be based on a local profile that holds the gathered information from the first three layers. Our new scheme is called Directional Optimized Link State Routing Protocol (DOLSR). We proved by OPNET simulator that our proposed techniques gave better end-to-end delay than the IEEE802.11 standard.