Performance Evaluation of DTN Routing Protocols for Drone Swarms Using a Web-Based Simulator

Abstract

The growing interest in drone swarms and their applications using wireless communication has resulted in the necessity for innovative network architectures. Drone swarms are subject to highly dynamic network topology, and the low drone density may constrain connectivity and overall network performance. The Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) architecture, which is based on dynamic discovery of neighbouring nodes and relay of data via store-and-forward mechanism, overcomes these challenges. In this study, we develop a DTN simulator for drone swarms using web technologies that operate within the web browser. We employ two commonly used DTN routing algorithms, namely epidemic routing and spray-and-wait routing, for varying numbers of nodes, simulation durations, and maximum allowed copies in the network. We compare these protocols by evaluating performance metrics such as delivery probability, number of hops/copies, and delivery time, through a case study. Additionally, we investigate the influence of the outage probability of the air-to-air channel between nodes.