Home // International Journal On Advances in Networks and Services, volume 5, numbers 3 and 4, 2012 // View article

A MANET Architecture for Airborne Networks with Directional Antennas

Authors:
William Huba
Nirmala Shenoy

Keywords: Airborne Surveillance; Network of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles; Directional Antennas; Time Division Multiple Access; Distributed Scehduling

Abstract:
Surveillance using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is an important application in tactical networks. Such networks are challenged by frequent link and route breaks due to highly dynamic network topologies. This challenge can be addressed through robust routing algorithms and protocols. Depending on the surveillance area to be covered and the transmission range of the transmitters in the UAVs, several of them may have to be deployed, requiring solutions that are scalable. The use of directional antennas mitigates the challenges due to limited bandwidth, but requires a scheduling algorithm to provide conflict free schedules to transmitting nodes. In this article we introduce a new approach, which uses a single algorithm (i) that facilitates multi hop overlapped cluster formations to address scalability and data aggregation; (ii) provides robust multiple routes from data originating nodes to data aggregation node and (iii) aids in performing distributed scheduling using a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) protocol. The integrated solution was modeled in Opnet and evaluated for success rate in packet delivery and average end to end packet delivery latency. High success rates combined with low latencies in the proposed solution validates the use of the approach for surveillance applications

Pages: 333 to 345

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2012. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 31, 2012

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2644