Experimenting Broadcast Storm Mitigation Techniques in FANETs

Civilian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) usually have modest sizes and also physical limitations that restrict their use. Using more than one aircraft can bring more efficiency and better results to missions. In order to coordinate the mission execution by a team, a flying ad hoc network (FANET) is set up and UAVs can exchange information through broadcast messages. This ad hoc communication among aircraft has new challenges that need investigation, such as the Broadcast Storm Problem (BSP). In this paper we present an evaluation of solutions, commonly used to mitigate BSP in other types of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), and apply them to FANET scenarios. We have adapted three algorithms to three different scenarios and applied those algorithms to an embedded platform called Gumstix Overo. Results presented here show algorithms performance concerning network coverage and avoidance of redundant broadcasts in three distinct topologies, also showing techniques adaptation needed for each scenario.