A mean field game-theoretic cross-layer optimization for multi-hop swarm UAV communications

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) multi-hop communication networks are foreseen to be widely employed in both military and civilian scenarios. However, in ultra-dense scenarios with swarm UAVs, nodes are highly dynamic mobile, ultra-dense deployment and non-centralized distribution. These characteristics make the centralized resource management policy not apply. Meanwhile, existing routing protocols can't meet the performance challenges of high dynamic, topology and link frequency changes of ultra-dense scenarios with swarm UAVs. To solve the above challenges of resource management and routing protocol, a cross-layer optimization method is presented with a novel mean field game (MFG) in this paper. It is based on the cross-layer design method of the MFG theory and jointly considers the power resources in the physical layer, frequency resources in the medium access control (MAC) layer, and routing resources in the network layer. By dividing into subproblems, the original problem is solved. Meanwhile, the optimal data transmission path can be selected through the management and allocation of frequency resources and power resources. A cross-layer resource management dynamic source routing (CLRM-DSR) protocol is designed based on that which adds link quality measurement. The simulation results show that the presented CLRM-DSR with the proposed resource management scheme can improve the data packet transmission rate, reduce end-to-end delay, and lower routing overhead for the multi-hop swarm UAV communication network.