Comparison of communication protocols for UAVs and VANETs

This decade sees a growing number of applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones. UAVs are now being experimented for commercial applications in public areas as well as used in private environments such as in farming. As such, the development of efficient communication protocols for UAVs is of much interest. This paper compares and contrasts recent communication protocols of UAVs with that of Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) using Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE) protocol stack as the reference model. The paper also identifies the importance of developing light-weight communication protocols for certain applications of UAVs as they can be both of low processing power and limited battery energy.

I. Introduction

UAVs, commonly known as drones can fly autonomously to a specified location along a specified path and can also be remotely controlled by a human operator. In the beginning, UAVs were used for military purposes but nowadays UAVs operate in commercial environments as well [1]. In recent years, UA V technology has attracted many researchers due to its numerous application possibilities. Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) research predicted that UA V sales will touch $130 million this year (2015) which is more than 50 percent as compared to last year [2]. UA Vs are classified according to their functions. These are target and decoy (used for target enemy aircrafts), reconnaissance (used for battlefield intelligence), combat (used for high risk missions), logistics (used for cargo operations), research and development (used for further research in UA VS), and civil and commercial UAVs (used for commercial applications) [3]. In the future, UA Vs will be providing more services in various domains such as farming, disaster management, construction, surveillance, transportation, to name a few. Commercial UA Vs are also available in various types depending on their payload, flying capacity and altitude. These are micro UA V s, generic UAVs, tactical UAVs, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, and civil U A V s [4]. U A V s are also classified by their flight altitude and flight distance. The smallest UA Vs are hand-held which can fly up to 600 m of altitude and cover 2 km radius area. Larger UAVs can fly about 1500 m high and travel a distance up to 10 km. NATO type UAVs can fly up to 3000 m altitude and can cover an area of 50 km in radius. Tactical UA Vs can fly at 5500 m altitude and cover 160 km distance whereas a MALE (medium altitude, long endurance) has the capability to fly 9000 m high and cover a range of over 200 km in radius. A HALE (high altitude, long endurance) UAV can fly over 9100 m altitude and cover an indefinite range [4].