Deployment of reliable, simple, and cost-effective medium access control protocols for multi-layer flying ad-hoc networks

Abstract

Driven by the recent advances in electronics and emergence of several radio communication technologies, the production of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has paved the way for the creation of low-cost flying ad-hoc networks (FANETs). Mobility, lack of central control and self-organizing nature between the UAVs are the main features of FANETs, which could expand the connectivity and extend the communication range at infrastructure-less area. On one hand, in case of disastrous situations when ordinary communication infrastructure is not available, FANETs can be used to provide a rapidly deployable, flexible, and self-managed communication network for real-time data transmission. On the other hand, connecting UAVs in ad-hoc mode in such a way to achieve a desired level of Quality-of-Service (QOS) requirements in a cost-effective manner is a daunting task. At the moment complex, expensive and unreliable wireless communication protocols at MAC layer are practiced. However, to enable FANETs system ubiquitous, it is necessary to have a reliable, simple and cost-effective MAC protocols. This paper introduces a novel idea of employing both IEEE 802.15.1 and IEEE 802.11 for multilayer FANETs scenarios. In this approach, data transmission between the member UAVs is done by deploying a low cost and simple 802.15.1, whereas the backbone UAVs will be connected using 802.11 MAC protocol. The proposed scheme considerably reduces communication budget and optimizes network performance. The simulation results also authenticate that the proposed MAC protocols could significantly increase the performance of flying ad hoc networks in terms of delay and throughput.