Fault-Tolerant Topology Control in Aeronautical Ad Hoc Networks

Aeronautical ad hoc network (AANET) is a new sort of mobile ad hoc network (MANET) whose airborne nodes (ANs) move fleetly and the corresponding topology changes rapidly. Fault-tolerance against node failures is a desirable property for communication topology of such networks especially when AANET is used for military applications. ANs rapidly move depending on the objective they try to achieve, thus the topology needs to be controlled periodically. ANs have a fixed transmission range, so additional relay nodes (RNs) are required for construction of a fault-tolerant topology among network nodes. As ANs move, the RNs need to move as well and it is desirable to move them a minimum amount to re-establish the topology as quickly as possible. We propose an online algorithm for RNs' movement control to maintain the AANET fault-tolerant during running time and the total distance RNs need to move is minimum. We show via simulations that the algorithm has good performance and it is applicable to the highly-dynamic aeronautical environment.