The Adaptive Communication Network Architecture of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

To realize ubiquitous wireless network environment, the unmanned aerial vehicle (DAV) is considered as good candidate for the next generation network communication infrastructure. UAVs wireless sensor network is composed of low cost and extremely power constrained sensor nodes scattered over spatial region. In this network, users can use UAVs to transfer data. In addition, good maneuverability and wide range of coverage improve UAVs communication efficiency. Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) and Delay / Disruption Tolerant Network (DTN) are considered good supporter for UAVs network. However, the performance of UAVs network may change with the change of surrounding environment, such as UAV density and mobility. Neither single network architecture can always perform well in UAVs network. Therefore, we propose a novel method to improve UAVs network capabilities. In our proposed method, each source node selects the network architecture (MANET or DTN) according to the feature of the data that need to be sent and the network environment. Additionally, we have implemented this architecture and measured data in real world to verify the reliability of the theory. Experimental results show that the bandwidth that our proposed adaptive architecture is 150\% better than DTN architecture. In addition, compare to MANET, the adaptive architecture can effectively transfer data in the high latency and easily interrupted network.