UAV Swarm Networks: Models, Protocols, and Systems

Fei Hu, DongXiu Ou, Xin-lin Huang, Fei Hu, DongXiu Ou, Xin-lin Huang

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000063134
• Subtopic: Computer Networking
• Index: Technology & Engineering

UAV swarm network has been used in many critical applications, such as disaster recovery, area surveillance, weather monitoring, and military communications. There are many challenging R&D issues in UAV network designs, such as the hardware/software integration for a large-scale UAV network management, long-distance data transmissions among UAVs, swarm shape/formation control, and intelligent UAV mobility/position prediction. This book will be the first one to cover the engineering designs (especially network protocol designs) for dynamic, large-scale UAV network. It has the technical models/algorithms and protocol specifications for practical UAV swarm network deployment.

Features:

• Includes chapters written by professors, researchers, engineers, and experts in UAV networking fields
• Details network protocol descriptions for practical engineering designs
• Covers 7-layer protocols (particularly data routing layer)
• Presents novel AI models/algorithms for intelligent UAV swarming/networking control
• Highlights practical hardware/software implementations for advanced UAV networks

This book is suitable to a variety of audiences: (1) industry UAV R&D engineers, administrators, or technicians, who would like to grasp the latest trends in UAV communications; (2) college graduate students or researchers, who may want to pursue some advanced research on large-scale UAV swarming and networking technologies; (3) government agencies that determine the future society development in this exciting field; and (4) other interested readers with a strong desire to understand the challenges of designing a QoS-oriented UAV network.

The book editors are: Dr. Fei Hu, Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA; Dr. Xin-Lin Huang, Professor in Information and Communication Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China; and Dr. DongXiu Ou, Professor in Transportation Information Institute at Tongji University, Shanghai, China.

Part I

UAV Network Architecture

1

Communication Topology Analysis upon a Swarm of UAVs: A Survey

Chen Wang^†, Jin Zhao

^†Department of Computer Science, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL

Contents

• 1.1Introduction
• 1.2Network and Routing Strategies of Effective UAV Communications
  • 1.2.1Optimal Routing Algorithm
  • 1.2.2Communication Architectures and Protocols
  • 1.2.3Multi-Hop Communication
  • 1.2.4Flight Ad Hoc Networks
• 1.3Feasibility and Robustness Analysis Under Different Networking Scenarios
  • 1.3.1Networking Influence on Location
  • 1.3.2UAV Height and Speed with respect to Communication Efficiency
  • 1.3.3Flying Distance Constraints under Networking Protocols
• 1.4Discussions
• 1.5Conclusions
• References

1.1 Introduction

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are aircraft without a human pilot aboard. Today, UAVs are of great interest in broad areas of applications, such as military reconnaissance, firefighter operation, police pursuit and so forth. To prevent the ill-utilization of UAVs, more and more nations have issued rules and regulations on the design, manufacture, distribution and setting up no-fly zones against UAVs for privacy purposes. The more and more advanced technologies enable the UAVs to perform tasks with longer distance, more accurate maneuvering, more efficient communication qualities and so forth. In this case, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the U.S. Army have issued well-built standards defining the UAV applications in detail [1, 2]. Research has been done based on those regulations and standards for a more reliable and robust aero-vehicle design. One of the most technological difficulties lies in the topology strategies of network communications.

Currently, the most common flying strategy of UAVs is the single-UAV system [3]. The UAV is set off individually, controlled and communicated by a human through a single-phase, two-way channel. Because the single-UAV (agent [4]) is relatively short ranged [5], once the command has been issued by the controller, the drone executes and gives feedback via a wireless network. This end-to-end communication method has three possible design flaws: (1) the communication quality is dependent on the travel distance of the drone, where the increased distance of the UAV yields a poorer connection; (2) the short-range response time limits this drone from tasks that require a relatively long distance [3]; and (3) the drone is not able to respond to the change of aerial environment intelligently and give feedback in time, so that if something happened to the drone that terminated the commanding channel, the UAV-at-large might not be able to retract back to the user.

Under this circumstance, a new applicable tactic has been suggested in coping with the abovementioned disadvantages, namely multi-UAV systems. A brief comparison between single- and multi-UAV system is illustrated in Figures 1.1 and 1.2. The search range of single-UAV forms a 2D geographical map with relative coordinates x, y. Due to the limitation of its design, it is possible to leave a traceable blind spot on the map. In contrast, a multi-UAV utilizes a group of small UAVs working simultaneously on a mission such that the field of view (FOV) formed has a depth of zero or a very limited blind spot.

From [3, 4, 6], there are many advantages of multi-UAV systems: (1) economy, (2) flexibility, (3) continuity, (4) speediness, (5) higher accuracy, (6) sustainability, and (7) ease of problem solving. Nonetheless, despite the listed advantages, the most challenging design issue deals with communication. Traditionally, an individual drone is exclusively connected to ground stations, while no mutual communication could be made between two independent drones. In this scenario, for the multi-UAV system topology, every time the communication has been made between two individual drones, the communication must go through the ground station, which will cause data traffic overflow on the ground and slow down communication efficiency. The exposed communication information requires more sophisticated data security methods to protect the data against intentional interceptions.

FIGURE 1.1 Blind spot illustration between (a) single-UAV and (b) multi-UAV systems.

FIGURE 1.2 These are (a) 3D and (b) 2D geographical maps captured by single- and multi-UAV systems, respectively.

To solve this problem, Purta et al. suggested a multi-hop communication method, from which the movement of each agent is determined by its own assigned tasks and by the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• About the Authors
• PART I UAV Network Architecture
• PART II UAV Mobility
• PART III Communication Protocols
• PART IV Reliability and Security
• PART V Hardware and Software Implementations
• Index