Flying Social Networks: Architecture, Challenges and Open Issues

IEEE Network, vol. 35, pp. 242–248

Abstract

This article presents a flying social network (FSN), which is a kind of flying ad hoc network (FANET) that implies human attributes and relationships. By the accurate analyzed social relationship of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) users, the social relationship can act as an essential basis to overcome the information propagation issue in FANET, including long delay and low delivery ratio. Specifically, this article proposes a comprehensive architecture of FSN and describes each of its function modules. Benefitting from social guidance, the devised schemes can improve the quality of service (QoS) of UAV users, enlarge their service coverage area, enhance security, and save power consumption. Then, we introduce a novel social-based routing scheme and design a new caching scheme to reduce the response delay and increase the response probability in FSN. In addition, we highlight open issues and discuss future works of FSN. Finally, a case study is completed by using simulations to demonstrate the effectiveness of the social-based method.

Authors 6

1. Junling Shi

   Shenyang Aerospace University

   Affiliation as printed

   Shenyang Aerospace University, China

2. Liang Zhao

   Shenyang Aerospace University

   Affiliation as printed

   Shenyang Aerospace University, China

3. Xingwei Wang

   Northeastern University

   Affiliation as printed

   Northeastern University, Canada

4. Mohsen Guizani

   Qatar University

   Affiliation as printed

   Qatar University, Qatar

5. Haris Gaanin Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University, Germany

6. Na Lin

   Shenyang Aerospace University

   Affiliation as printed

   Shenyang Aerospace University, China