Optimal relay path selection and cooperative communication protocol for a swarm of UAVs

In many applications based on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), it is possible to establish a cluster of UAVs in which each UAV knows the other vehicle´s position. Assuming that the common channel condition between any two nodes of UAVs is line-of-sight (LOS), the time and energy consumption for data transmission on each path that connecting two nodes may be estimated by a node itself. In this paper, we use a modified Bellman-Ford algorithm to find the best selection of relay nodes in order to minimize the time and energy consumption for data transmission between any UAV node in the cluster and the UAV acting as the cluster head. This algorithm is applied with a proposed cooperative MAC protocol that is compatible with the IEEE 802.11 standard. The evaluations under data saturation conditions illustrate noticeable benefits in successful packet delivery ratio, average delay, and in particular the cost of time and energy.