A-Geo: Adaptive Geographic Routing for Consumer FANETs in Next-Generation Communication

The emergence of consumer drones and flying ad hoc networks (FANETs), along with the growing demands of low latency, high throughput, ultra-reliable communication, and beyond 5G technologies, has markedly accelerated research. FANETs play a pivotal role in next-generation communication by providing dynamic and flexible airborne networking solutions to enhance various industrial processes. In FANETs, where sparse deployment, intermittent connections, and high mobility complicate routing, geographic routing offers an efficient solution by focusing on the shortest paths. This work proposes an adaptive geographic routing protocol, A-Geo, comprising two modules. The first module provides an AHP-TOPSIS-based forwarding mechanism (ATFM) for next-hop selection utilizing multiple decision metrics related to geographic progress, link reliability, connectivity, and buffer occupancy. AHP systematically assigns weights to these metrics, while TOPSIS prioritizes the neighboring nodes to select the optimal next hop. The second module, the adaptive metric prioritization scheme (AMPS), dynamically adjusts the weightage of decision metrics in response to the evolving network dynamics of FANETs. Based on the simulation results obtained from network simulator ns-3, A-Geo demonstrates superior performance compared to other routing protocols, considering multiple performance metrics under varied network scenarios.