An optimized energy-efficient mission-based routing protocol for unmanned aerial vehicles

Abstract

Routing in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) faces serious energy consumption problems due to the premature battery depletion caused by the intensive exchange of control messages between the UAVs. The frequent use of control messages increases the delivery ratio. However, it increases the energy consumption which prevents the UAVs from completing their mission on time. In this paper, we present OEM-AODV, an adaptive routing protocol based on AODV, whereby the periodic control messages are dynamically sent to reduce energy consumption. We designed a predictive mathematical model through several steps based on performance modeling and multi-objective optimization using the Design of Experiments. Thereby, the frequency of sending periodic control messages is defined according to some mission parameters namely dimensions of the mission area, the maximum velocity of UAVs, and their transmission range. The simulation experiments using the NS-3 simulator show that OEM-AODV reduces significantly both energy consumption and routing overhead when compared with the original AODV and with a recent adaptive version EE-HELLO-AODV.