Maximizing interconnectedness and availability in directional airborne range extension networks

Range extension via the use of small aircraft with highly directional antennas that act as relays is a topic of interest in military network technology development. Antenna elements in such designs typically have limited field-of-view (FoV), potentially making interconnectedness among communication nodes dependent on the geometry of the physical network. This paper examines a generic sectorized pod antenna design and compares the interconnectedness and link availability of these designs in representative range extension network layouts. A heuristic for determining quantitative trade-offs between link availability and node interconnectedness is developed. Results from this heuristic show that both interconnectedness and availability increase with a decreasing number of antenna sectors, and that a marginal azimuthal overlap increases average link availability substantially in two representative scenarios.