Virtual Topology Based Hierarchical Networking for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarm

Flying Ad-hoc Networks (FANETs) consisting of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are challenged by its disorder and time-varying topology, diverse link conditions, large network scale, etc. The existing networking algorithms designed for FANETs are limited by high networking overheads and low scalability. To tackle these shortages, a hierarchical partitioned network architecture for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms is proposed, which reduces the complexity of network hierarchy and enhances fault tolerance in UAV swarm networks. To achieve hierarchical networking, a weight-based cluster head election and update mechanism is established, which induces adjustable parameters related to node communication ranges to facilitate flexible adjustment and restructuring of the network topology, thereby enhancing network longevity. Moreover, we propose a hierarchical networking algorithm based on virtual topology for efficient networking of UAV swarms. This algorithm constructs a two-layer virtual topology consisting of a main route and several branch routes based on virtual identifiers. This results in a distributed FANET with high degrees of freedom and reconfigurability, facilitating communication and coordination among UAV nodes at different layers. Simulation results show that compared with the existing virtual topology-based networking algorithm and the enhanced MPR selection algorithm, the proposed algorithm provides better performance in terms of signaling overhead and network convergence time.