Power allocation factor controlled adaptive hybrid AF and DF cooperative relaying in UAVs assisted FANETs

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are becoming more and more popular in both military and non-military applications. UAVs are able to carry out mission-critical tasks by establishing flying ad-hoc networks (FANETs). However, the normal flaws of the UAVs have a strong impact on the FANETs' ability to provide quality service. A hybrid cooperative approach for the relaying UAV in a three-node FANET is presented in this research. Based on the target information rate, a threshold level is fixed for the channel state information (CSI) in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). For the relaying UAV to use when looking at the CSI, a hybrid selection technique that includes both amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) modes is proposed. The ability of the source UAV to modify its power distribution to the relaying UAV and destination is taken into account in the selection method together with CSI while selecting the hybrid mode at relay. Finally, simulation results confirm that the proposed method performs better than fixed relaying using traditional AF and DF modes in terms of probability of system outages.