TY - JOUR
T1 - Distributed TDMA Scheduling for Autonomous Aerial Swarms
T2 - A Self-Organizing Approach
AU - Aydin, Esin Ece
AU - Akcasoy, Alican
AU - Cakir, Furkan
AU - Cansiz, Berna Simsek
AU - Secinti, Gokhan
AU - Canberk, Berk
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2013 IEEE.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Self-organization is a key strategy for improving the performance of an aerial swarm ad hoc network. The proliferation of low-cost VTOL drones has broadened the application domain of aerial swarms, and the need for synchronized communication among network entities has become crucial. However, existing ad hoc approaches struggle to maintain multi-hop connections in contested environments characterized by frequent topology changes and intermittent links. To overcome these limitations, we introduced STDMA protocol, which enables the self-configuration of drones without reliance on a ground controller. In continuation of the earlier work, we conduct extensive experiments to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol. Comparative simulation experiments cover various scenarios with different network sizes, frame lengths, and traffic loads. The STDMA protocol achieves optimal access delay in highly contested environments and reduces delay by approximately 19.181%. Moreover, it exhibits improved channel utilization compared to the E-ASAP/SM protocol, with a 4.5 times increase.
AB - Self-organization is a key strategy for improving the performance of an aerial swarm ad hoc network. The proliferation of low-cost VTOL drones has broadened the application domain of aerial swarms, and the need for synchronized communication among network entities has become crucial. However, existing ad hoc approaches struggle to maintain multi-hop connections in contested environments characterized by frequent topology changes and intermittent links. To overcome these limitations, we introduced STDMA protocol, which enables the self-configuration of drones without reliance on a ground controller. In continuation of the earlier work, we conduct extensive experiments to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol. Comparative simulation experiments cover various scenarios with different network sizes, frame lengths, and traffic loads. The STDMA protocol achieves optimal access delay in highly contested environments and reduces delay by approximately 19.181%. Moreover, it exhibits improved channel utilization compared to the E-ASAP/SM protocol, with a 4.5 times increase.
KW - Ad hoc networks
KW - UAV swarm
KW - autonomous control
KW - decentralized control
KW - distributed systems
KW - reliable communication
KW - self-organizing network management
KW - swarm intelligence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85189158172&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3381859
DO - 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3381859
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85189158172
SN - 2169-3536
VL - 12
SP - 45631
EP - 45643
JO - IEEE Access
JF - IEEE Access
ER -