Proactive and multi-layer rate adjustment of routing control messages for drone ad hoc networks

Among the challenges of ad hoc network routing protocols for UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) is the need for rapid detection and response to changes in network topology. Due to the high speeds of their nodes, UAVs networks are characterized by rapid topology changes, which increases the importance of route changes in network protocols. This prompted the following question: is it possible to increase the throughput of ad hoc UAVs networks by improving the response time of routing protocols to route changes? This paper proposes a proactive and multilayer mechanism to detect topological changes in UAVs networks using the B.A.T.M.A.N. (Better Approach To Mobile Ad-hoc Networking) protocol and acts and responds accordingly by adjusting the times of the routing protocol. The performance of the protocol with the enhancements is evaluated by simulation and results show that the mechanism can improve the performance of the original protocol in terms of throughput by 34%.