Area Coverage Aware Approach for Data Communication in UAVs Networks

The high stability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and their agility in harsh areas have enabled their effectiveness in several applications in today's research and industrial communities. The proper coordination and collaboration of multiple UAVs wirelessly linked with a central entity as a Flying Ad hoc NETwork (FANET) is vital to organizing data and improving a wide range of tasks. Meanwhile, maintaining connectivity and coverage requirements remain the most critical issues that should be addressed for data communication and mobility patterns in the area of interest. However, there is a conflict between network connectivity and area coverage during network design and maintenance. The aim of this work is to investigate data communication over UAVs networks while optimizing area coverage and exploration. To this end, we propose a new Cluster-based Random Pheromone Zone (C-RDPZ) for data communication and mobility control in UAVs networks. The simulation of the proposed protocol carried out using Network Simulator 3 (NS3) has yielded convincing results in terms of energy consumption, area coverage, and data communication.