Wireless Mesh Networks for UAVs

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Wireless Mesh Networks for UAVs

• This project seeks a robust, secure and
  scalable Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) for
  networking Unmanned Air vehicles (UAVs) for bulk
  data transfer and multimedia streaming through
  the design of low complexity medium access,
  routing and transport protocol layers. The system
  should have low overheads, comprehensive security
  that addresses threats at various layers with no
  counter effects on performance in terms of
  latency and throughput.
• For UAV networks, that require high security it
  is not advisable to have dedicated low mobility
  UAV mesh routers (typical of WMN) that are
  crucial to the network, as it makes them highly
  visible and easy targets both from a physical and
  security perspective. Hence we use a cluster
  based approach, where a cluster has the
  flexibility of supporting clients at multiple
  hops from the Cluster Head (CH) and the size of
  cluster and number of hops from CH can be
  controlled for optimal performance. This approach
  has the following attractive features
• Robustness - reduced dependency on dedicated
  devices, protocols and better load balancing
  while avoiding the necessity for multiple
  protocols with associated conversions and delays
  
• Flexibility - as any UAV in the network can take
  the role of a CH a role that can be randomly
  rotated using defined criteria and simple
  algorithm

Security - the rotation of the CH role avoids
visibility. On the failure or compromise of a CH,
other nodes that are monitoring its behavior can
re-elect a new CH Fallback to WMN - In the
event dedicated nodes are used, they would be
natural candidates for CH and the network
fallsback to the more traditional WMN The
comprehensive solution includes a robust medium
access, a novel routing and forwarding algorithm,
a suitable transport layer, and low-overhead
security features, some of which are inherent in
the proposed schemes. The solution also provides
a heuristic cluster creation algorithm,
inter-cluster and intra-cluster routing and
traffic regulation and security through the CH.
Year 2006, Funded - Department of Defense,
Nirmala Shenoy, Yin Pan, Spectracomcorp, Rochester