DCP and VarDis: An ad-hoc protocol stack for dynamic swarms and formations of drones

IF 4.5 3区计算机科学 Q1 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Computer Communications Pub Date : 2025-02-01 DOI:10.1016/j.comcom.2024.108021

Samuel Pell, Andreas Willig

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Recently, swarms or formations of drones have received increased interest both in the literature and in applications. To dynamically adapt to their operating environment, swarm members need to communicate wirelessly for control and coordination tasks. One fundamental communication pattern required for basic safety purposes, such as collision avoidance, is beaconing, where drones frequently transmit information about their position, speed, heading, and other operational data to a local neighbourhood, using a local broadcast service. In this paper, we propose and analyse a protocol stack which allows to use the recurring-beaconing primitive for additional purposes. In particular, we propose the VarDis (Variable Dissemination) protocol, which creates the abstraction of variables to which all members of a drone swarm have (read) access, and which can naturally be used for centralized control of a swarm, amongst other applications. We describe the involved protocols and provide a performance analysis of VarDis.

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来源期刊

Computer Communications 工程技术-电信学

CiteScore

14.10

自引率

5.00%

发文量

397

审稿时长

66 days

期刊介绍： Computer and Communications networks are key infrastructures of the information society with high socio-economic value as they contribute to the correct operations of many critical services (from healthcare to finance and transportation). Internet is the core of today''s computer-communication infrastructures. This has transformed the Internet, from a robust network for data transfer between computers, to a global, content-rich, communication and information system where contents are increasingly generated by the users, and distributed according to human social relations. Next-generation network technologies, architectures and protocols are therefore required to overcome the limitations of the legacy Internet and add new capabilities and services. The future Internet should be ubiquitous, secure, resilient, and closer to human communication paradigms. Computer Communications is a peer-reviewed international journal that publishes high-quality scientific articles (both theory and practice) and survey papers covering all aspects of future computer communication networks (on all layers, except the physical layer), with a special attention to the evolution of the Internet architecture, protocols, services, and applications.