DPTR: Distributed priority tree-based routing protocol for FANETs

Collaborative Flying Ad Hoc Networks (FANETs) are mutually operating ad hoc systems comprising ground ad hoc and aerial ad hoc networks as their coordinating units. Coordination amongst different ad hoc networks and their hybridization elongate the application of ad hoc networks. These networks can be utilized for both military and civilian applications. However, despite possessing a lot of advantages, network partitioning and relaying are the major issues that arise when two or more networks coordinate with each other. There subsist a plethora of approaches, which highlighted the issues cognate to network partitioning as well as routing, but these fixated on such quandaries within the same network. Even the existing routing protocols counterfeit these problems, but with a scope inhibited to a single network and do not resolve these issues for two different operating networks. In this paper, the problem of network partitioning is considered between the aerial ad hoc network and the ground ad hoc network, and a felicitous routing protocol is proposed that can handle transmission in this mutually coordinated system. The proposed protocol resolves both the issues related to topology formation as well as routing between simultaneously operating nodes of two different ad hoc formations. The proposed protocol is derived over distributed Red-Black (R-B) tree, which forms a priority network that allows selection of an appropriate node and a channel for relaying, and is termed as Distributed Priority Tree-Based Routing Protocol (DPTR). The protocol operability is demonstrated using network simulations in comparison with the existing state-of-the-art routing protocols. The results suggest significant gains in channel utilization, packet delivery ratio, end to end delay, overheads, probability of connectivity and network throughput.