Flying Ad Hoc Networks: A New Domain for Network Communications.

Antonio Guillen-Perez,Maria-Dolores Cano

doi:10.3390/s18103571

Abstract

The advent of flying ad hoc networks (FANETs) has opened an opportunity to create new added-value services. Even though it is clear that these networks share common features with its predecessors, e.g., with mobile ad hoc networks and with vehicular ad hoc networks, there are several unique characteristics that make FANETs different. These distinctive features impose a series of guidelines to be considered for its successful deployment. Particularly, the use of FANETs for telecommunication services presents demanding challenges in terms of quality of service, energy efficiency, scalability, and adaptability. The proper use of models in research activities will undoubtedly assist to solve those challenges. Therefore, in this paper, we review mobility, positioning, and propagation models proposed for FANETs in the related scientific literature. A common limitation that affects these three topics is the lack of studies evaluating the influence that the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) may have in the on-board/embedded communication devices, usually just assuming isotropic or omnidirectional radiation patterns. For this reason, we also investigate in this work the radiation pattern of an 802.11 n/ac (WiFi) device embedded in a UAV working on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. Our findings show that the impact of the UAV is not negligible, representing up to a 10 dB drop for some angles of the communication links.

Highlights

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), known as drones, have been adopted in many sectors such as agriculture, wildfire monitoring, border surveillance, or telecommunications, to name a few [1,2]
The existence of interference did not allow full coverage of the entire area, but the results showed the existence of an optimal separation between both UAVs, which provided the highest proportion of coverage area
We reviewed the state of the art related to mobility, positioning, and propagation models in flying ad hoc networks

Summary

Introduction

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), known as drones, have been adopted in many sectors such as agriculture, wildfire monitoring, border surveillance, or telecommunications, to name a few [1,2]. Simple taxonomies can be used to categorize UAVs, for instance, in terms of the type of flight (autonomous or remotely controlled), their size (large or small), the type of wings, or their communication capabilities. Whereas FW-UAVs present longer flight times, higher flight speeds, and a more aerodynamic design, RW-UAVs are able to perform vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), exhibit greater stability (can control yaw, pitch, roll, and throttle), and have the capacity to hover over static points.

Methods

Results

Conclusion