An energy-efficient routing algorithm for UAV formation based on time-aggregated graph
Wang Gaifang, Bo Li, Yang Hongjuan, Xu Jiang · China Communications · 2024
The limited energy and high mobility of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) lead to drastic topology changes in UAV formation. The existing routing protocols necessitate a large number of messages for route discovery and maintenance, greatly increasing network delay and control overhead. A energy-efficient routing method based on the discrete time-aggregated graph (TAG) theory is proposed since UAV formation is a defined time-varying network. The network is characterized using the TAG, which utilizes the prior knowledge in UAV formation. An energy-efficient routing algorithm is designed based on TAG, considering the link delay, relative mobility, and residual energy of UAVs. The routing path is determined with global network information before requesting communication. Simulation results demonstrate that the routing method can improve the end-to-end delay, packet delivery ratio, routing control overhead, and residual energy. Consequently, introducing time-varying graphs to design routing algorithms is more effective for UAV formation.