Leveraging Antenna Orientation to Optimize Network Performance of Fleets of UAVs

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the problem of optimizing the network performance of a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in static positions. More precisely, we allow each UAV to change its orientation in order to improve the quality of communication with its neighbours. This form of controlled mobility takes advantage of the effective radiation pattern of each UAV. We build a decentralized scheme based on the hill climbing optimization approach without a priori knowledge of the antennas radiation patterns. Then, we propose a simulation framework, based on ns-3, allowing to evaluate the gain in network performance. We provide results in several deployment scenarios involving different rate adaptation algorithms and network sizes. 1

A distributed antenna orientation solution for optimizing communications in a fleet of UAVs

“…Moreover, we are interested in the network performance. In order to evaluate the proposed antenna orientation solution in a realistic context, a dedicated simulation framework, based on the ns-3 simulator and a modular approach relying on message passing was proposed and developed in [9]. However, for performance and maintainability reasons, we have re-implemented this solution directly in the ns-3 simulator.…”

“…Because building over ns-3 to implement what was needed to evaluate our solution was deemed easier than building over OMNeT++/INET, we created a specific simulation framework in [9], based on a modular approach offloading the simulation of the antennas and UAV controllers to an external component. Communication between ns-3 and this external component was done using message-passing library, ZeroMQ, and a serialization and de-serialization library, Protocol Buffers.…”