FANET-enabled cluster-based emergency communication with 3D mobility in 5G and beyond

In 5G and beyond, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are highly valued for their communication capabilities, affordability, and deployment flexibility. Multi-UAV systems, which operate in ad-hoc networks known as UAV ad-hoc networks or flying ad-hoc networks (FANETs), represent some of the most promising technologies both currently and in the future. In disaster situations, it will be crucial to set up temporary UAV-based emergency flying base stations (BSs), provide wireless coverage in cellular networks, and establish communication relays for long-distance data transmission. To establish this network, efficient communication between the UAVs is the most vital point. Additionally, due to mobility, the topology changes frequently, leading to potential collisions and packet losses. Therefore, in this paper, a minimum distance clustering scheme (MDCS)-based FANET is proposed, where the topology is controlled by a back-off mechanism and network connectivity is maintained even when the UAVs are moving at different altitudes by calculating the relative velocity on a 3D platform while considering the randomized path-based 3D mobility model. An efficient cluster build-up process and a method for determining the position of the cluster head (CH) are introduced to control the cluster proficiently. An analytical study is performed considering Rayleigh, Nakagami-m, and Rician fading channels. Moreover, the obtained Monte Carlo simulation results justify the analytical findings. Finally, the simulations show better results than existing work in terms of throughput with changes in distance, velocity, and the number of UAVs, as well as outage probability, packet dropping rate, and delay. In the case of the Rician fading channel, for 40 UAVs, a cluster size of 7 or fewer is more favorable, showing a maximum connection distance of 165 m, a maximum throughput of 10.2 Mbps, and a maximum delay of 55.57 ms.