Neighbor Discovery for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Networks

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks have wide civil applications. However, due to the 3D deployment and high mobility of UAVs, the neighbor discovery for UAV networks faces great challenges. In this paper, we have designed a two-way handshaking neighbor discovery scheme for UAV networks. A scanning path for 3D UAV networks is proposed. In order to reduce the overhead of neighbor discovery, each UAV varies among the states of transmit, receive, and sleep with certain probabilities. The sleep probability is closely related to the probability of topology change of UAV networks. The optimal sleep probability is derived according to the mobility model of UAVs. The efficiency of the proposed neighbor discovery scheme is analyzed via the Markov process. The optimal transmission probability of UAVs is derived to improve the efficiency of neighbor discovery. Besides, the impact of various parameters on the efficiency of neighbor discovery is analyzed by simulation results. This paper has considered the deployment and mobility of UAVs in the design of neighbor discovery scheme, which provides an insight in the design of neighbor discovery schemes for UAV networks.