Establishment of a fanet communication network for swarm unmanned aerial vehicles

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are increasingly used in military, surveillance, security, transportation, natural disaster, and firefighting applications. As the duties performed by a single UAV pose numerous hazards in terms of time, cost, and safety, the concept of herding UAVs has emerged. Consequently, it is anticipated that introducing small-sized herd UAVs will reduce these dangers. Communication is a significant challenge in swarm–UAV structures. Swarm UAV communication employs a variety of strategies, one of which is the flying ad hoc network (FANET) communication mechanism. A FANET is a type of wireless network that allows swarm UAVs to connect with one another and transmit data collected from these UAVs to a central location. Within the framework of this thesis, a low-cost FANET network structure for herd UAVs is developed. The network configuration is composed of one ground station and three nodes. The network topology was tested at 1-, 10, and 30 m distances and communication speeds of 250 Kbps, 1 Mbps, and 2 Mbps, and the results were assessed. Furthermore, network structure delays were calculated at 300, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, and 19200 baud rates with 1-, 10-, and 30-byte data sizes. The test measurements revealed that the delay was the optimum in the range of 4800-9600 at various connection speeds. Furthermore, packet loss was calculated based on distance, and it was discovered that the lowest packet loss occurred at 250 Kbps. The data from the tests were collected in the field, and relevant results were provided within the scope of this thesis.