Investigation of Cartesian Routing for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Networks

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are a pilotless aircraft that does not require any direct human intervention for flying. It can move autonomously based on its pre-programmed software, or can be remotely controlled. Besides its basic plane components, it also contains some computing devices and sensors for determining its position and for gathering information from the mission area. Flying Ad hoc Networks (FANET) are comprised of autonomous flying vehicles. It is a special case of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) characterized by a high degree of mobility. One of the most difficult and complex challenges facing FANETs is the routing process. To achieve this goal the Cartesian Orientation Protocol is used. The Cartesian routing protocol exploits geographic information for UAVs rather than using the address to direct packets to its destination. In this work, the most prominent algorithms based on geographic location has been highlighted that have been adapted to work in a three-dimensional environment and implemented in a common scenario and evaluated through several measures such as Packet Delivery Ratio, Path Dilation and End-to-End Delay.