Self-Organization as a Supporting Paradigm for Military UAV Relay Networks

The modern battlefield scenario presents a number of challenges that highlights the importance of data gathering and information flow as crucial to the success of a military operation. In this context, network-centric warfare systems play an important role to bridge the gap between data and information sources and consumers. These systems are generally composed of different types of networks both deployed on the field and on back-end facilities. A paramount problem faced when conceiving the interconnection between the networked devices is how to provide robust and dependable connections to the devices on the field. This work tackles this issue proposing the use of the self-organizing paradigm to design efficient UAV relay networks to support military operations. As a proof of concept, realistic simulation experiments are performed providing clear indications of the claimed benefits of the self-organizing paradigm applied to these military systems.