Cooperative UAV Scheme for Enhancing Video Transmission and Global Network Energy Efficiency

Abstract

Collaboration between multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to set up a Flying Ad Hoc Network (FANET) is a growing trend since future applications claim for more autonomous and rapid deployable systems. The user experience on watching videos transmitted over FANETs should always be satisfactory even under influence of topology changes caused by the energy consumption of UAVs. In addition, the FANET must keep the UAVs cooperating as much as possible during a mission. However, one of the main challenges in FANET is how to mitigate the impact of limited energy resources of UAVs on the FANET operation in order to monitor the environment for a long period of time. In this sense, UAV replacement is required in order to avoid the premature death of nodes, network disconnections, route failures, void areas, and low-quality video transmissions. In addition, decision-making must take into account energy consumption associated with UAV movements, since they are generally quite energy-intensive. This article proposes a cooperative UAV scheme for enhancing video transmission and global energy efficiency called VOEI. The main goal of VOEI is to maintain the video with QoE support while supporting the nodes with a good connectivity quality level and flying for a long period of time. Based on an Software Defined Network (SDN) paradigm, the VOEI assumes the existence of a centrailized controller node to compute reliable and energy-efficiency routes, as well as detects the appropriate moment for UAV replacement by considering global FANET context information to provide energy-efficiency operations. Based on simulation results, we conclude that VOEI can effectively mitigate the energy challenges of FANET, since it provides energy-efficiency operations, avoiding network death, route failure, and void area, as well as network partitioning compared to state-of-the-art algorithm. In addition, VOEI delivers videos with suitable Quality of Experience (QoE) to end-users at any time, which is not achieved by the state-of-the-art algorithm.

Cluster-Based Control Plane Messages Management in Software-Defined Flying Ad-Hoc Network

“…In this way, CAPONE reduces the bandwidth consumption and signaling overhead, while guaranteeing the control message delivering in FANET scenarios. Extensive simulations are used to show the gains of the CAPONE in terms of Packet Delivery Ratio, overhead, and energy compared to existing SDN-FANET architectures.Sensors 2020, 20, 67 2 of 18 humans' eyes in the sky, and UAVs must be flying and monitoring events in a coordinated fashion for a long period with reliability [10].In FANET scenarios, UAVs must collaborate, and their behaviors (both the data transmission and the UAV movement) must be effectively controlled to maximize the FANET benefits and application performance [11]. In this way, a decentralized approach [6] to manage FANET include more complexity to synchronize information with all network nodes, requiring more control messages to be transmitted across the FANET, and can increase total power consumption.…”

“…The SDN-FANET controller considers the global UAV context information, such as UAV positions, movement trajectories, and residual energy, to perform all control functions. SDN-FANET provides flexibility to network management, where the network plane can be programmed to meet particular application requirements [16].SDN-FANET controller requires accurate global UAV context information to prevent UAV collisions, optimize the UAVs' movements, establish a routing path, and other decision making tasks [11]. In this way, the controller node must receive UAV context information with low packet loss to be aware of the UAV status for decision making, which is achieved by reliable control message dissemination [12].…”

“…For instance, based on mobility or energy consumption prediction algorithms, the controller can change the frequency control message dissemination. Also, for large-scale environments, it might be required multi-hop communication to disseminate control messages, which can be achieved by deploying multiple local controllers that are responsible only for forwarding control messages to/from the central controller [11]. In this context, hierarchical network architecture, i.e., clustering, enhance the overall network performance of control messages management compared to flat architecture, by reducing energy consumption, interference, and packet loss, while increases scalability and application performance [20].…”

“…In FANET scenarios, UAVs must collaborate, and their behaviors (both the data transmission and the UAV movement) must be effectively controlled to maximize the FANET benefits and application performance [11]. In this way, a decentralized approach [6] to manage FANET include more complexity to synchronize information with all network nodes, requiring more control messages to be transmitted across the FANET, and can increase total power consumption.…”

“…SDN-FANET controller requires accurate global UAV context information to prevent UAV collisions, optimize the UAVs' movements, establish a routing path, and other decision making tasks [11]. In this way, the controller node must receive UAV context information with low packet loss to be aware of the UAV status for decision making, which is achieved by reliable control message dissemination [12].…”