Oblivious neighbor discovery algorithms in airborne networks with directional multi-antenna

Abstract

Neighbor discovery problem is of essential importance in airborne network (AN) to support the capabilities of real-time situation awareness and sharing among aircraft. With the exploding demand for high-data-rate transmission and communication security, it is a predictable trend that adopt the multi-antenna in AN. However, due to the uncertainty of AN (e.g., oblivious relative positions, asynchronous clock, heterogeneous multi-antenna configurations, and anonymous information, the neighbor discovery algorithm must be carefully designed, with the aim at achieving faster beam rendezvous within a bounded latency. In this paper, the oblivious multi-antenna neighbor discovery problem is investigated, with the multi-antenna neighbor discovery algorithms (MAND) proposed based on the Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT). Through the theoretical analysis, we derive the conditions for successful neighbor discovery within a bounded latency, as well as the worst case discovery latency bound with multi-antenna. The simulation results show that our algorithms can approximate the better average performance of the randomized mechanism in oblivious scenarios, besides achieving complete neighbor discovery within a bounded latency.