Link availability estimation based reliable routing for aeronautical ad hoc networks

The aeronautical ad hoc network (AANET) is an application of the mobile ad hoc networking technology to aeronautical communications. As the airliners move at a very high speed, one critical issue for improving the performance of AANET is to select reliable route that can address the frequent link breakage problem induced by the unpredicted network topology changes. In this paper, we focus on developing a link availability estimation based reliable routing protocol which considers the unpredicted network topology change problem to improve the performance of AANET. The link availability indicates the probability that a link will be continuously available for a given period of time. We first propose a novel Semi-Markov Smooth mobility model to mimic the behavior of the airliners in the sky. On the basis of the mobility model, we obtain the probability density function of the relative speed of two nodes, and further derive the expectation of the link lifetime. The accuracy of our analysis is validated by comparing the analytical results with that obtained by means of simulations. Moreover, we define the link availability factor and use it as the path selection metric to design a reliable routing protocol for AANET. Simulation results show that a gain in performance can be obtained by our protocol compared with the traditional routing strategy.