Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Energy Research Articles

Cost-effective task offloading and trajectory optimization in UAV assisted edge networks with DDPG

Purpose Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), known for their exceptional flexibility and maneuverability, have become an integral part of mobile edge computing systems in edge networks. This paper aims to minimize system costs within a communication cycle. To this end, this paper has developed a model for task offloading in UAV-assisted edge networks under dynamic channel conditions. This study seeks to efficiently execute task offloading while satisfying UAV energy constraints, and validates the effectiveness of the proposed method through performance comparisons with other similar algorithms. Design/methodology/approach To address this issue, this paper proposes a task offloading and trajectory optimization algorithm using deep deterministic policy gradient, which jointly optimizes Internet of Things (IoT) device scheduling, power distribution, task offloading and UAV flight trajectory to minimize system costs. Findings The analysis of simulation results indicates that this algorithm achieves lower redundancy compared to others, along with reductions in task size by 22.8%, flight time by 34.5%, number of IoT devices by 11.8%, UAV computing power by 25.35% and the required cycle for per-bit tasks by 33.6%. Originality/value A multi-objective optimization problem is established under dynamic channel conditions, and the effectiveness of this approach is validated.

Genetic Algorithm-Based Cooperative Coding and Caching Data Dissemination Scheme in Multi-UAV-Enabled Internet of Vehicles.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as efficient tools in disaster-stricken areas, facilitating efficient data dissemination for post-disaster rescue operations. However, the limited onboard energy of UAVs imposes significant constraints on their operational lifespan, thereby presenting substantial challenges for efficient data dissemination. Therefore, this work investigates a data dissemination scheme to enhance the UAVs' bandwidth efficiency in multi-UAV-enabled Internet of Vehicles, thereby reducing UAVs' energy consumption and improving overall system performance when UAVs hover along designated flight trajectories for data dissemination. Specifically, first, we present a software-defined network-based framework for data dissemination in multi-UAV-enabled IoV. According to this framework, we formulate a problem called C2BS (Coding-based Cooperative Broadcast Scheduling) that focuses on optimizing the UAVs' bandwidth efficiency by leveraging the combined benefits of coding and caching. Furthermore, we demonstrate the NP-hardness of the C2BS problem by employing a polynomial time reduction technique on the simultaneous matrix completion problem. Then, inspired by the benefits offered by genetic algorithms, we propose a novel approach called the Genetic algorithm-based Cooperative Scheduling (GCS) algorithm to address the C2BS problem. This approach encompasses a coding scheme for representing individuals, a fitness function for assessing individuals, operators (i.e., crossover and mutation) for generating offspring, a local search technique to enhance search performance, and a repair operator employed to rectify infeasible solutions. Additionally, we present an analysis of the time complexity for the GCS algorithm. Finally, we present a simulation model to evaluate the performance. Experimental findings provide evidence of the excellence of the proposed scheme.

Multi-UAV aided energy-aware transmissions in mmWave communication network: Action-branching QMIX network

Advancements in drone technology and high-frequency millimeter-wave communications are transforming unmanned-aerial-vehicles (UAV)-aided networks, expanding their potential across diverse applications. Despite the advantages of broad frequency bandwidth and enhanced line of sight connectivity in the UAV-aided millimeter-wave networks, it is challenging to provide high network performance because of the inherent limitations of limited UAV energy and millimeter-wave’s large path loss. This challenge becomes more important in dynamically changing multi-UAV environments. To address this challenge in multi-UAV networks, we propose a novel approach based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning called action-branching QMIX. Our method determines nearly optimal codebook-based discrete beamforming vectors and UAV trajectories while maintaining a balance between communication efficiency and energy consumption. The proposed approach employs a new Long Short-Term Memory module to control long sequences effectively and enables it to adapt to changing environmental variables in real-time. We thoroughly evaluate the proposed control with a real-world measurement-based channel model. The evaluation confirms that the proposed control converges stably and consistently, and provides enhanced performance in terms of downlink data rate, success rate of reaching the destination, and service duration when compared to traditional benchmark multi-agent reinforcement learning schemes. These results emphasize the enhanced energy sustainability, robustness, and stability of the proposed approach in dynamically changing multi-UAV environments when compared to the existing benchmark algorithms.

Blocklength Allocation and Power Control in UAV-Assisted URLLC System via Multi-agent Deep Reinforcement Learning

Integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) systems can improve the real-time communication performance for various industrial internet of things (IIoT) applications. Designing an intelligent resource allocation system is one of the challenges posed by an energy-constrained UAV communication system. Therefore, we formulate a sum rate maximization problem, subject to the UAVs’ energy by optimizing the blocklength allocation and the power control jointly in the uplink UAV-assisted URLLC systems, in which the probabilistic channel model between UAV and users is adopted. The problem is difficult to solve due to the non-convex objective function and the energy constraints, and also challenging to make fast decision in the complex communication environment. Thus, we propose a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based scheme to optimize the blocklength allocation and power control jointly. First, transform the original problem into the multi-agent reinforcement learning process, where each subcarrier is regarded as the agent that optimizes its individual blocklength allocation and power control. Then, each agent makes the intelligent decision to obtain the maximum reward value depending on the weighted segmented reward function, which is related to the UAV energy consumption and user rates to improve the rate performance. Finally, the simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the benchmark schemes and has the stable convergence in different settings, such as the learning rate, the error probability, the subcarrier spacing, and the number of users.

Energy-efficient UAV communication: A NOMA scheme with resource allocation and trajectory optimization.

This work investigates a downlink nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aided wireless communication, where a single UAV was regarded as an air base station (ABS) to communicate with multiple ground users. Considering the constraints of velocity and maneuverability, a UAV energy efficiency (EE) model was proposed via collaborative design resource allocation and trajectory optimization. Based on this, an EE maximization problem was formulated to jointly optimize the transmit power of ground users and the trajectory of the UAV. To obtain the optimal solutions, this nonconvex problem was transformed into an equivalent convex optimization problem on the basis of three user clustering algorithms. After several alternating iterations, our proposed algorithms converged quickly. The simulation results show an enhancement in EE with NOMA because our proposed algorithm is nearly 99.6% superior to other OMA schemes.

UAV-Assisted Task Offloading in Vehicular Edge Computing Networks

Vehicular edge computing (VEC) provides an effective task offloading paradigm by pushing cloud resources to the vehicular network edges, e.g., road side units (RSUs). However, overloaded RSUs are likely to occur especially in urban aggregation areas, possibly leading to greatly compromised offloading performance. Inspired by this, this paper explores this situation by introducing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to address the VEC overload problem. Specifically, we formulate a novel online UAV-assisted vehicular task offloading problem to minimize vehicular task delay under the long-term UAV energy constraint. To solve the formulated problem, we first decouple the long-term energy constraint based on the Lyapunov optimization technique. In this way, the problem can be solved in a real-time manner without requiring future information. Then, we construct a Markov chain based on Markov approximation optimization to find out the close-to-optimal UAV-assisted offloading strategies. Furthermore, we derive a mathematical analysis to rigorously demonstrate the offloading performance of the proposed algorithm. Additionally, the simulation results show that the proposed method outperforms the baselines by significantly reducing the vehicular task delay constrained by the long-term UAV energy budget under various system parameters, such as the energy budget and computation workloads.

Intelligent interference cancellation and ambient backscatter signal extraction for wireless-powered UAV IoT network

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offer a new approach to wireless communication, leveraging their high mobility, flexibility, and visual communication capabilities. Ambient backscatter communication enables Internet of Things devices to transmit data by reflecting and modulating ambient radio waves, eliminating the need for additional wireless channels, and reducing energy consumption and cost for sensors. However, passive ambient backscatter communication has limitations such as limited range and poor communication quality. By utilizing UAVs as communication nodes, these limitations can be overcome, expanding the communication range and improving the quality of communication. Although some research has been conducted on combining UAVs and ambient backscatter, several challenges remain. One key challenge is the strong direct link interference in ambient backscatter under UAV conditions, which significantly affects communication quality. In this paper, we propose an intelligent backward and forward straight link interference cancellation algorithm based on NOMA decoding technique to enhance ambient backscatter communication quality under UAV conditions and extract more ambient energy for UAV energy supply. The paper includes theoretical derivation, algorithm description, and simulation analysis to validate the error bit rate of labeled information bits. The results demonstrate that the forward algorithm reduces the error bit rate by approximately 20% under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions, while the backward algorithm reduces the error bit rate under high SNR conditions. The combination of the forward and backward algorithms reduces the error bit rate under both high and low SNR conditions. The proposed method contributes to improving the quality of ambient backscatter communication in UAV settings.

Optimisation of Multi-Type Logistics UAV Scheduling under High Demand

At present, interest in the application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for delivery is growing. A new “multi-type of UAV collaborative delivery” mode has been proposed. Through a combination of large, medium and small UAVs, the delivery capabilities of the UAV logistics system are significantly improved. Sometimes there is high demand, resulting in planned delivery routes that are no longer feasible, and even cause a shortage of distribution centre capacity and drones. This study explores logistics delivery strategies to solve problems caused by high demand. In this study, a multitype and multidistribution UAV model was established with the objective of minimising the total cost of distribution by considering factors such as the UAV energy consumption, load and distribution centre conditions. An improved ant colony algorithm was designed and its effectiveness was verified through the variability of the calculation time and multiple calculation results of different-scale examples. Finally, the classic vehicle routing problem (VRP) case is used in three scenarios to analyse the UAV scheduling optimisation problem. The results indicate that assisted delivery can reduce costs by 3% while ensuring delivery timeliness. The results of this study can provide guidance and benchmarks for the application of UAVs in urban logistics delivery systems.

Optimal Placement of UAVs to Provide Surveillance Coverage for a Ground Vehicle in a Collaborative Search-and-Rescue Operation

A drone-truck combined search-and-rescue operation involves a ground vehicle and a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), where the UAVs provide surveillance coverage to guide the ground vehicle to navigate through the environment and carry out the search and rescue, and the ground vehicle functions as a service hub for carrying and recharging the UAVs. An effective strategy for providing persistent UAV surveillance coverage around the ground vehicle consists of initially forming the UAV swarm coverage and then controlling the UAV formation to follow the ground vehicle. This paper focuses on the formation of coverage and presents a method for planning an optimal placement of the UAVs to form seamless surveillance coverage around the ground vehicle. The optimization problem is formulated to determine the number and positions of UAVs that minimize the energy consumption in deploying and collecting those UAVs, subject to a set of constraints in UAV positioning, communication, and coverage, specifically the available number of UAVs, allowable range of UAV altitude, allowable energy consumption for deploying and collecting each UAV, communication ranges of UAVs and ground vehicle, safety distance between UAVs for collision and interference avoidance, and seamless coverage. A bi-layer optimization procedure is developed, with an outer layer searching through the allowable numbers of UAVs and an inner layer searching for the optimal positions for each specific number of UAVs. The optimal number and positions of UAVs are chosen by comparing among the solutions for different numbers of UAVs. A simulation study is carried out to validate the proposed optimization formulation and solution approach, where the simulation settings of UAVs, particularly the critical parameters including the UAV energy constants, visibility angle, altitude, and communication range, use the representative values presented in the cited literature. The simulation results show that the proposed approach is effective in planning the optimal number and positions of UAVs to provide seamless surveillance coverage for a ground vehicle. The next step of research will set priorities on comprehending the complexity of the solution space and enhancing the global optimality of the solution.

A PSO-based energy-efficient data collection optimization algorithm for UAV mission planning.

With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the use of UAV-based data collection systems has become a very popular research topic. This paper focuses on the energy consumption problem of this system. Genetic algorithms and swarm algorithms are effective approaches for solving this problem. However, optimizing UAV energy consumption remains a challenging task due to the inherent characteristics of these algorithms, which make it difficult to achieve the optimum solution. In this paper, a novel particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm called Double Self-Limiting PSO (DSLPSO) is proposed to minimize the energy consumption of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). DSLPSO refers to the operational principle of PSO and incorporates two new mechanisms. The first mechanism is to restrict the particle movement, improving the local search capability of the algorithm. The second mechanism dynamically adjusts the search range, which improves the algorithm's global search capability. DSLPSO employs a variable population strategy that treats the entire population as a single mission plan for the UAV and dynamically adjusts the number of stopping points. In addition, the proposed algorithm was also simulated using public and random datasets. The effectiveness of the proposed DSLPSO and the two new mechanisms has been verified through experiments. The DSLPSO algorithm can effectively improve the lifetime of the UAV, and the two newly proposed mechanisms have potential for optimization work.

Energy-efficient trajectory design for secure SWIPT systems assisted by UAV-IRS

Due to its controllable maneuverability, wide coverage, and low cost, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has great potential in post-disaster rescue, cargo transport and emergency communication. Considering its limited onboard energy, energy-efficient UAV communication is a challenge. This research examines the security of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) systems assisted by intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS) and UAVs while considering the flight energy of rotary-wing UAVs. Specifically, an IRS is mounted on a UAV to enhance the quality of legitimate transmission, and artificial noise (AN) is introduced into the base station (BS) to reduce eavesdropping quality. The power splitting (PS) technology is adopted at ground devices (GDs) to simultaneously decode information and harvest energy. First, we jointly design the BS transmit beamforming, UAV-IRS phase shifts and trajectory/velocity as well as GDs PS ratio with the aim of maximizing the sum secrecy rate of all GDs. Then, an iterative algorithm is developed to address the formulated problem. In particular, additional variables are introduced to handle this complicated objective function, and the original problem is decoupled into multiple sub-problems, which can be solved alternately by invoking the successive convex approximation (SCA) and semidefinite relaxation (SDR) techniques. Finally, numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme exhibits a substantial performance in the security rate of SWIPT systems assisted by UAV-IRS, and its performance is improved by at least 12% compared to benchmark schemes at the flight energy budget ethr=5KJ and the number of reflecting elements Nr=25.

Service Time Maximization for Data Collection in Multi-UAV-Aided Networks

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been enormously gaining attention to offload traffic or collect data in wireless networks due to their key attributes, such as mobility, flexibility, and cost-effective deployment. However, the limited onboard energy inhibits the UAV from serving for a longer duration. Therefore, this paper studies a UAV-aided network where multiple UAVs are launched to collect data from the mobile nodes. In particular, we aim to maximize the service time of the UAVs by jointly optimizing the three-dimensional (3D) trajectory of the UAVs and resources allocated to each node by the UAVs such that each mobile node receives a minimum specified data rate. To facilitate a solution, we construct an equivalent problem that considers the UAV's energy consumption. In particular, we minimize the maximum energy consumed by the UAVs in each time slot. To solve the problem, an iterative approach is presented that decouples the problem into two sub-problems. The optimal location of the UAVs is computed in the first sub-problem, while resource allocation is carried out in the second sub-problem. These two sub-problems are solved in an iterative manner using the alternating optimization approach. We show that the proposed approach improves the service time of the network by 20% on average compared to the existing approaches.

Enabling Metaheuristics with Deep Learning based Resource Allocation in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Wireless Networks

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network offers a variety of applications in public safety, disaster management, advertising and broadcasting, overload situation, etc. Due to the dynamic characteristics of MU, it is challenging to provide robust transmission services to mobile users (MU). Resource allocation (RA), including sub-channel, serving user, and transmit power, is a crucial problem; also, it is critical to enhance the coverage and energy efficiency of UAV-enabled communication protocol. Furthermore, system resources are limited (for example, spectrum, and transmission power) and UAV transmission coverage and on-board energy are limited. In order to meet the QoE of any user with limited UAV energy and limited resource system, we jointly enhance UAV trajectory, user communication scheduling, and bandwidth allocation and transmit power to satisfy user QoE requirements and increase energy efficiency. Thus, the study proposes a new mud ring optimization with deep belief network-based resource allocation scheme (MRODBN-RAS) technique for UAV-enabled wireless networks. The proposed MRODBN-RAS approach focuses on the effectual accomplishment of the computational and energy-effective decision. Besides, the MRODBN-RAS technique assumed the UAV as a learning agent by forming RA decisions as actions. In addition, the MRODBN-RAS technique designed a reward function to reduce the weighted resource utilization. The MRODBN-RAS technique uses DBN model with hyperparameter tuning using MRO algorithm to allocate the resources. The design of the MRO algorithm helps in the optimal selection of the hyperparameter related to the DBN model. The simulation results of the MRODBN-RAS method are examined under various measures. The extensive comparison study highlighted the better performance of the MRODBN-RAS approach over existing techniques.

UAV Relay Energy Consumption Minimization in an MEC-Assisted Marine Data Collection System

Recently, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted maritime communication systems have drawn considerable attention due to their potential for broadband maritime communication applications. However, their limited energy resources remains a critical issue in providing long-term data transmission support for maritime applications. In this study, an integrated sea–air–terrestrial communication system was constructed for marine data collection, where several unmanned surface vessels (USVs) are deployed to collect marine data from underwater sensors (UWSs), and a UAV hovers above these USVs as a relay node, transmitting marine data from USVs to an onshore base station (BS). To prolong the lifetime of the UAV relay, mobile edge computing technology is applied in USVs for partial data computing, which reduces the to-be-relayed data volume from UAVs to USVs to onshore BS as well as the relay energy consumption of UAV. A parallel data computing and transmission scheme was developed for simultaneous local data computing and relaying in the proposed system. Accordingly, a UAV energy consumption minimization problem was formulated with constraints on the USV’s computational ability, the USV’s transmission power budget, the UAV transmission power budget, and the maximum system latency. To effectively solve this nonconvex optimal problem, an energy optimal partial data computing and relaying strategy was constructed by successively optimizing the data partial computational offloading ratio, USV transmit power allocation, and UAV transmit power. Numerical simulations were used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.

Max–Min Fair 3D Trajectory Design and Transmission Scheduling for Solar-Powered Fixed-Wing UAV-Assisted Data Collection

This paper presents a new three-dimensional (3D) trajectory design approach for a solar-powered, fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to harvest solar energy and collect data from multiple smart devices (SDs). The trajectory is optimized based on max-min fairness to balance the total amount of uploaded data and the fairness among the SDs. The key idea is that we develop non-trivial variable substitution and successive convex approximation (SCA) techniques to convexify data transmission, UAV energy consumption and mobility, and energy harvesting constraints under a persistent round-robin transmission schedule of the SDs. The resulting algorithm guarantees a locally optimal trajectory satisfying the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions. Another important aspect is that we further jointly optimize the transmission schedule along with the trajectory, and prove that absolute fairness in terms of uploaded data can be achieved among the SDs under the max-min fairness. The new algorithms apply to both line-of-sight (LoS)-dominant and probabilistic SD-UAV channels. Numerical results show that a 3D trajectory increases the uploaded data by 111%, compared to a two-dimensional (2D) trajectory. The proposed algorithms can balance the energy harvesting and data collection, and achieve fairness in both LoS-dominant and probabilistic SD-UAV channels.

GREENSKY: A fair energy-aware optimization model for UAVs in next-generation wireless networks

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer a strategic solution to address the increasing demand for cellular connectivity in rural, remote, and disaster-hit regions lacking traditional infrastructure. However, UAVs’ limited onboard energy storage necessitates optimized, energy-efficient communication strategies and intelligent energy expenditure to maximize productivity. This work proposes a novel joint optimization model to coordinate charging operations across multiple UAVs functioning as aerial base stations. The model optimizes charging station assignments and trajectories to maximize UAV flight time and minimize overall energy expenditure. By leveraging both static ground base stations and mobile supercharging stations for opportunistic charging while considering battery chemistry constraints, the mixed integer linear programming approach reduces energy usage by 9.1 ​% versus conventional greedy heuristics. The key results provide insights into separating charging strategies based on UAV mobility patterns, fully utilizing all available infrastructure through balanced distribution, and strategically leveraging existing base stations before deploying dedicated charging assets. Compared to myopic localized decisions, the globally optimized solution extends battery life and enhances productivity. Overall, this work marks a significant advance in UAV energy management by consolidating multiple improvements within a unified coordination framework focused on joint charging optimization across UAV fleets. The model lays a critical foundation for energy-efficient aerial network deployments to serve the connectivity needs of the future.

Joint optimization of trajectory and resource allocation in cellular-connected multi-UAV MEC networks

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)-based mobile edge computing (MEC) has been introduced as a promising model for enhanced edge communications in the future of integrated air-sky-earth and sea communications. However, in UAV-assisted mobile edge computing systems, the energy consumption problem of UAVs during computational offloading becomes a serious challenge. Due to UAVs constrained energy and processing capabilities, the majority of current research does not adequately take into the task of offloading UAVs as end users and the energy consumption problem. Considering this, this paper proposes a novel cellular-connected multi-UAV MEC network in which the UAV can offload its computational tasks to a ground-based station (GBS) and the UAV can harvest energy from the GBS. Total UAV energy consumption is minimized by jointly optimizing the UAV-GBS association, UAV transmit power, UAV trajectory, and energy harvesting time. The formulated energy consumption minimization problem is a difficult non-convex optimization problem. To solve this issue, the optimization problem is first broken down into three sub-optimization problems and resolved using successive convex optimization techniques. Then a joint block coordinate descent (BCD) based resource allocation and UAV trajectory algorithm is proposed to solve the overall optimization problem. Finally, the effectiveness of the suggested scheme is verified by simulation. The simulation results demonstrate that the suggested strategy is more efficient and performs better.

Energy efficiency maximization for WPT-enabled UAV-assisted emergency communication with user mobility

We investigate the energy efficient communication in the wireless power transfer (WPT)-enabled unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted emergency communication system. Specifically, the UAV acts as a base station performs a two-phase task in each time-slot (TS). During the first phase of the TS, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) mode is used to serve multiple mobile users in the downlink. During the second phase, WPT technology is used to charge multiple mobile users on the ground. Due to the limited on-board energy of the UAV, our goal is to maximize the system energy efficiency (EE) by jointly optimizing the UAV trajectory, the information transmit power, the WPT power and the user bandwidth. However, the highly coupled nature of the optimization variables makes the nonconvex problem difficult to solve. In order to solve the problem, a low-complexity alternating iterative optimization algorithm is devised, utilizing block coordinate descent and successive convex approximation techniques. Through simulations, it is demonstrated that the proposed algorithm effectively achieves a balance between system throughput and UAV energy consumption, and can effectively improve the EE of the system compared to the benchmark schemes.

Reliability optimization in IRS-assisted UAV networks

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) are regarded as critical technologies which need to be developed for the sixth-generation mobile network (6G). In this paper, we study the reliability of the IRS-assisted Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) communication system with limited UAV energy in complex urban scenarios. We present the problem by joint optimization of the IRS's scheduling, the UAV's trajectory, the IRS's phase shift, and the UAV's transmit power for maximizing the reliability of the transmission link under the constraints of UAV energy and channel error rate. The concavity of the problem is difficult to judge, and the problem is hard to find a substitution function to convert it into a tractable form. Therefore, we design a chaotic adaptative hybrid whale optimization algorithm (CAHWOA) to address the problem. CAHWOA is implemented by using alternately the chaotic adaptation whale optimization algorithm (CAWOA) and the variational perturbation binary whale optimization algorithm (VPBWOA). CAWOA and VPBWOA are used for solving the continuous variable subproblem and the binary variable subproblem, respectively. The numerical results show that the joint optimization of IRS and UAV improves the transmission link reliability by nearly 30% compared with the two baseline schemes. CAHWOA can improve the convergence rate by about 18% compared with the baseline algorithms. Meanwhile, it can enhance the optimization-seeking accuracy by about 0.04.

A Position-Based Modified OLSR Routing Protocol for Flying Ad Hoc Networks

Flying Ad-hoc Network (FANET) is an autonomous technology that constitutes Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to establish a wireless network that is ad-hoc in nature. In FANET, without a well-established infrastructure, the UAV nodes within the network can communicate even with a constrained wireless communication range. Because of the rapidly changing network topology and unique characteristics of FANET, the existing routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) or vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are inappropriate. Thus, this paper proposes a 3D position-based modified OLSR routing protocol for efficient MPR selection, which deals with high mobility, topological changes, and energy constraint issues in the existing protocols. The proposed protocol takes into account both energy efficiency: by considering residual energy and node degree of UAVs and frequent topological changes: by combining the 3D-position information of the UAVs, which is used to calculate the link expiration time. The performance of the proposed protocol is mathematically assessed and simulated through the NS-3 simulator. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol enhances packet delivery ratio by 8%, 13.4% and average throughput by 4.46%, 19.67% on an average compared to the existing benchmark protocols “P-OLSR” and “improved OLSR-ETX”, respectively. In addition, the suggested technique minimizes the routing overhead by 6.47%, 4% and end-to-end delay by 18.99%, 25.10% on average compared to the existing protocols “P-OLSR” and “improved OLSR-ETX”, respectively.