Providing Full Connectivity in Large Ad-Hoc Networks by Dynamic Placement of Aerial Platforms

摘要

In this paper, the authors address the problem of providing full connectivity to disconnected ground MANET nodes by dynamically placing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to act as relay nodes. They provide a heuristic algorithm to find the minimal number of such aerial vehicles required to provide full connectivity, and to find the corresponding locations for these aerial platforms (UAVs). They also track the movement of the ground nodes and update the location of the UAVs. The paper also describes a communication framework that enables the ground nodes to communicate with their peer ground nodes as well as with the UAVs that act as relay nodes. The communications architecture is designed to work with existing MANET routing protocols.