Cluster Head-Based Cooperative Communication System for Efficient Energy Consumption in Swarm UAVs

초록

Demand for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has surged across diverse domains. Because UAV systems are battery-powered, their available energy is limited, which in turn constrains transmit power and thus communication range. To mitigate these constraints, swarm UAVs—in which multiple UAVs cooperate to accomplish a mission—have attracted significant attention. In a swarm, multiple UAVs fly concurrently and perform tasks cooperatively; the operational area of each UAV is partitioned to minimize overlap. Consequently, swarms can systematically cover a wider area than a single UAV and increase mission throughput. However, in decentralized flying ad hoc network (FANET) environments, the large volume of UAV-to-UAV communications induces congestion, and mobility leads to high topological volatility, rendering links unstable. As a result, latency and packet loss may occur, making it difficult to guarantee quality of service (QoS). In centralized models proposed to address this issue, a cluster head manages communications. Because the cluster head consumes more energy than other UAVs, it has a shorter flight time. When the cluster head is replaced, the ensuing topology change degrades the overall network stability. To remedy the instability caused by rapid energy depletion of the cluster head, we propose a Cluster-Head-Based Cooperative Communications System (C3S) that leverages cooperative communications. C3S shares data with cooperative nodes and performs cooperative transmissions to reduce the energy consumption of the transmitting node, thereby balancing energy expenditure across cluster-head nodes and extending network lifetime. Moreover, C3S exploits temporal and spatial diversity gains to provide reliable communications at low transmit power.

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