Dynamic Graph Optimization and Performance Evaluation for Delay-Tolerant Aeronautical Ad Hoc Network

Abstract

With the growing interest in providing internet access and cellular connectivity in the commercial aircraft, the compatibility between Air-to-Air (A2A) communications and current Air-to-Ground (A2G) macro-cellular communications is necessary to form an Aeronautical Ad hoc Network (AANet). Due to the typical features of airborne communications, such as high mobility, long transmission range and three-dimensional macro-cells, AANet is affected by intermittent links, which results in variant delayed data transmissions. To this end, we exploit a dynamic graph approach to model such an AANet with rapidly changing topology under a realistic airborne scenario. Targeting the problem of intermittent transmissions, by employing A2A, an AANet can bear three transmission modes: direct transmission, connected relay transmission and opportunistic transmission. To investigate the potential gain of A2A transmissions in terms of the end-to-end data flow transmission delay and the data traffic amount, we formulate an integer non-linear programming problem that minimizes the average end-to-end delay from Internet Gateways (IGWs) on shore to the aircraft receivers through multiple options of the transmission modes. Through solving this minimization problem based on the realistic dynamic graph model, the tradeoffs between the end-to-end transmission delay and other key network factors related to AANet formation and resource allocation can be obtained without much compromise on the transmission delay. The results show that the average end-to-end delay of the AANet is comparable to the direct transmission delay when having a tradeoff with the data traffic amount, buffer size and the spectrum sharing.