Utility Analysis of Network Coding for Coordinated Formation Flight in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

CFF (coordinated formation flight) is a usual flight action of multiple aircrafts. CFF of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) can expand single UAV's task coverage radius and enhance the success rate of task execution. CFF of UAVs has more communication needs (e.g. throughput, reliability, and stability) than current manned aircrafts. In this paper, we investigate the utility of network coding for CFF in UAVs. Since the formations for CFF of UAVs are relatively fixed, we abstract the universal formation for CFF of UAVs according to structural features. By introducing network coding into universal formation for CFF of UAVs, we analyze the network model and derive the existence condition of network coding for CFF of UAVs. Analysis shows that the network coding can reduce the costs of data transmission, and balance the network load, and finally improve the effectiveness and reliability of CFF of UAVs.