SPECIAL SECTION ON NETWORK RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN FLYING AD HOC NETWORKS:

CHALLENGES, POTENTIALS, FUTURE APPLICATIONS, AND WAYFORWARD

Received April 2, 2019, accepted April 23, 2019, date of publication May 8, 2019, date of current version May 20, 2019.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2915561

The Broadcast Storm Problem in FANETs and the

Dynamic Neighborhood-Based Algorithm
as a Countermeasure
RAYNER M. PIRES 1 , ALEX SANDRO ROSCHILDT PINTO2 , AND
KALINKA REGINA LUCAS JAQUIE CASTELO BRANCO 1
1 Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, São Carlos 13566-590, Brazil
2 Department of Informatics and Statistics, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis 88040-900, Brazil
Corresponding author: Rayner M. Pires (raynermp@gmail.com)
This work was supported in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) under Grant 001
and in part by the Army Research Office under Grant W911NF-18-1-0012.

ABSTRACT Flying ad hoc networks (FANETs) are a new paradigm that can overcome mission constraints
of single unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). FANETs are composed of several UAVs that cooperate to
accomplish some critical mission (i.e., hazardous area monitoring). In order to maintain UAVs coordination,
all UAVs must continuously retransmit or relay messages through the wireless channel to assure that every
UAV knows the FANET condition. However, when this message exchange is done arbitrarily, it may cause the
broadcast storm problem, leading the wireless medium to an inoperable state. Despite some efforts reported
in the literature for providing general broadcast storm problem mitigation techniques, the challenge of aggre-
gating new information/knowledge to receivers, instead of just spreading the information in the network,
has received less attention. In this paper, we not only prove that broadcast storm problem causes network
contention as the number of UAVs increases but also propose the innovative dynamic neighborhood-based
algorithm for the broadcast storm problem (DNA-BSP), which was developed and validated based on the
outdoor experiments and computer simulations. It can mitigate the broadcast storm problem, which is a real
challenge in FANETs, reducing message redundancy in more than 98%, and making message delivery more
than 95% faster than in flooding scenario, outperforming classical broadcast storm mitigation techniques
when applied in FANETs. Our detailed results can also guide future researches and provide useful insights
for engineers planning and optimizing mission-critical mobile ad hoc network with the support of UAVs.

INDEX TERMS Broadcast mitigation techniques, data dissemination protocols, FANETs, flooding, UAV
communication, wireless ad hoc communication.

I. INTRODUCTION processing of geographically distributed data, interconnec-

Communication between a single civilian small-scale tion of unconnected partitions, and many other mission
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and its base station have types [1]–[6].
been done in infrastructure mode. Such communication may The alternative for communication in a multi-UAV system
limit the aircraft’s distancing due to interruption of the com- is to establish an ad hoc network between aircraft. In this
munication link, thereby limiting the coverage area of the way, nodes communicate with each other, and the group’s
mission. In many applications, a swarm of UAVs can provide connection with the base station can be made through only
significant advantages such as in search and rescue missions, one of the group members (or momentarily by some of them),
target detection, delivering medical supplies to otherwise which acts as the gateway in the network.
inaccessible regions, crowd monitoring, cooperative envi- This network kind is referenced in the literature by dif-
ronment monitoring, border patrol missions, gathering and ferent names, such as UAV network, aeronautical ad hoc
network, airborne communication networks, UAS MANET,
The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and UAANETs, and finally flying ad hoc networks, which is the
approving it for publication was Onur Alparslan. most common terminology and adopted in this paper.
2169-3536 2019 IEEE. Translations and content mining are permitted for academic research only.
VOLUME 7, 2019 Personal use is also permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. 59737
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 R. M. Pires et al.: Broadcast Storm Problem in FANETs and the Dynamic Neighborhood-Based Algorithm
FIGURE 1. A FANET network representation. The feasibility of
communication between all aircraft and a base station (or all base
stations) enables a multi-UAV system to expand its capability of mission
accomplishment.
Flying Ad hoc Network (FANET) is depicted in Fig. 1. It is
a subtype of Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) and Mobile
Ad hoc Network (MANET). This reclassification is due to
differences that arise in the aerial environment and restric-
tions that are imposed by this dynamic scenario, like: high
mobility, terrain changes, channel conditions, node failure,
or dynamic mission demands [7].
The degree of nodes mobility in FANETs is much higher
than in VANETs or MANETs. Because of this, the network
topology also changes more frequently. In addition to an ad
hoc connection to each other, UAVs may need to establish a
connection to a GCS (Ground Control Station), as in missions
where data is collected and sent to a server on the ground,
or when the GCS is responsible to manage the mission
accomplishment, for example. Other prominent differences
that can be enumerated are the movements’ speed, altitude
differences, network density, distance between nodes, and
three-dimensional movement pattern [7]. These character-
istics may require – and usually, require – different data
exchange strategies for each node.
A. RELATED WORK
Tseng et al. [8] investigate the flooding approach using
theoretical modelling and simulation evaluation. Numerical
results show that a single retransmission is capable to increase
up to 41% the coverage area of a message, but the redundancy
is increased by an average of 61% for each additional cover-
age area. In that work, the authors conclude that the flooding
retransmission can greatly degrade the network performance
and recommended that solutions using flooding should be
used with caution because the range expansion is due to high
costs in terms of bandwidth and power consumption.
The flooding offers the advantage of increasing the range
of the messages in dense networks when compared with
other dissemination mechanisms that use broadcast [8], [9].
However, in denser networks, it generates excessive mes-
sage duplication, packet collision and network contention.
Those consequences are known as the Broadcast Storm
Problem (BSP).
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The main approach to solve the broadcast storm problem
in MANETs is focused on how to reduce the amount of
redundant retransmissions. This can be achieved by prevent-
ing a subset of the network nodes from doing the retrans-
mission. There are several works in the literature that use
different techniques of redundancy control in broadcast com-
munications, as presented in the review of Reina et al. [10].
All works using the mitigation approach can be classified
into one of the general categories suggested in [8]: counter-
based, probability-based, distance-based, location-based, and
cluster-based techniques.
The simplest methods count the number of copies received
from a message and use a threshold to decide whether this
message should be retransmitted or discarded. Rather than
a counter, probability-based methods use a pre-established
probability value as the threshold for deciding on retransmis-
sion. They are a modification of the flooding method and
when the threshold is equal 100% both are assumed to be
equal.
The methods based on distance and location evaluate the
additional area that a retransmission can reach. In order to
decide on the retransmission of a message, a transmitter
calculates the distance to a receiver and compares with the
threshold, which is predefined in order that the transmissions
increase the range of the messages. The distance analysis is
done with GPS (Global Positioning System) support or by the
signal strength of neighboring nodes [9].
A cluster consists of a set of nodes where only one of
them functions as gateway – the one responsible for for-
warding the messages of the entire group. Clustering-based
methods do not allow other members of the group, except
the gateway, to relay messages. Then, the transmitter uses
some of the other methods to decide which messages are
retransmitted or are discarded. Some of the characteristics
of the clustering-based methods include the reduction of
the single hop range, the hops number growth, the end-
to-end delay aggravation and the decrease of the network
contention [11].
Tseng et al. [8] proposed several methods to reduce redun-
dant retransmissions and to differentiate the retransmission
time to alleviate the BSP problem. In the counter-based
method proposed by them, the node cancels the retransmis-
sion and discards the packet if it receives multiple copies of
the same message. Upon receiving a broadcast message for
the first time, instead of immediately retransmit it, the node
begins to wait for a random period of assessment. If a node
receives multiple copies of that message during the wait
time and the number of copies received exceeds a thresh-
old, the retransmission is canceled. The main idea of this
algorithm is to minimize the excessive retransmissions of
messages in areas where there is signal overlap, which is one
of the causes of message duplication.
Tseng et al. [12] proposed an adaptive system to solve the
problem of the counter threshold value. The counter threshold
can be described as the maximum number of copies of a
message allowed to be received before its retransmission.
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R. M. Pires et al.: Broadcast Storm Problem in FANETs and the Dynamic Neighborhood-Based Algorithm
A low threshold can greatly reduce the number of transmitting
nodes. However, the range of the messages is greatly reduced
in sparse networks. On the other hand, a high threshold can
guarantee greater range, but at the cost of a large number
of transmitting nodes. To solve that problem, the authors
introduced an adaptive function for the counter threshold that
takes into account the number of neighboring nodes. In their
method, the threshold value varies based on the number of
neighboring nodes to the source node. This function provided
better results than in the previous work, but to calculate
the dynamic number of neighbors, they have used the peri-
odic exchange of HELLO messages, from the ad hoc routing
protocol.
The use of HELLO messages is a technique known
today for overloading the ad hoc network, precisely because
these messages are commonly distributed using the flooding
method. Alternatively, the work [12] could have determined
the relative location of the neighboring nodes using GPS
coordinates, calculating incoming message delays or measur-
ing the received signal strength (RSS) for example.
Gerla and Yi [13] have investigated the communication
between groups of autonomous vehicles. Since then there
has been motivations to group autonomous vehicles to carry
out complex or hazardous civilian missions, such as emer-
gency situations, natural disasters, interconnection of isolated
regions or monitoring of crowds, for example. In this work,
they adopt a scenario where there are islands of geograph-
ically separated sensors, whose data must be collected by
groups of UAVs. Each group heads to an island and collects
the information cooperatively. These groups need an effi-
cient backbone link to send sensed data to a ground station,
to exchange data between groups, to navigation, and, more
broadly, to perform the complex mission autonomously. The
authors defined that the communication between all UAVs
would be made in an ad hoc and hierarchical way. In this
communication, the cluster heads communicate through mul-
ticast. As soon as data arrives at the representative node,
it is responsible for disseminating this data within the group,
adopting any efficient broadcast technique. So, this work is
focused on a solution for mission-oriented data exchange. For
the feasibility of communication between groups, it offers as
a solution a multicast routing protocol. It does not evaluate
the quality of the communication between UAVs of the same
group nor offer solutions to problems that occur in dissemi-
nation via broadcast.
The work presented in [14] examines the UAVs’ flight
formation from the network point of view, considering the
relevant communication problems in a group of UAVs with
coordinated behavior. The objective of this work was to
investigate the network constraints to maintain a formation
with more than two aircraft, where the placement corrections
are performed with the exchange of information about the
location of the other nodes. They used the NS2 network simu-
lator to perform the computational simulations. Although the
metrics adopted are valuable, this work still does not consider
others also important to guarantee a quality of service in
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this network, such as network flow, for example. Another
limitation of this work and of [13] as well, is that nodes move
only in two dimensions. This may be a limitation of the used
platforms, but a realistic FANET simulation environment
should consider the mobility of UAVs in three dimensions
as well as the physical characteristics of three-dimensional
wave propagation, rather than models that define propagation
unrealistically in two dimensions.
The paper presented by Han et al. [15] does not focus on
UAVs. However, it presents a scenario where the formation
control of a group of mobile wireless robots is done in a
distributed way inside a MANET and by the analysis of
the radio signal of the neighbors immediately adjacent. In
this algorithm, robots broadcast HELLO messages at regular
intervals of 2 seconds (sending rate of 0.5 Hz), containing the
current position of the robot and the direction to where it is
moving. This information is captured by adjacent neighbors
(single hop neighbors).
The algorithm was tested in a simulation environment with
the QualNet tool. The authors conducted the simulation to
evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm against
two metrics: average delivery rate and average delivery time
of the messages to the recipient. The higher was the group’s
speed, the lower was the average delivery rate. This can be
explained by packet loss due to the fixed broadcast periodicity
of the HELLO messages.
In order to achieve good delivery results in large groups,
it was necessary to deal with network constraints, which
resulted in a slower displacement and an increased delivery
time. It is evident, then, the influence of the network qual-
ity of service on the performance of a mission accomplish-
ment. This is another work investigating the application of
a communication network between robots without support
of an infrastructure. However, it also does not simulate the
diversity of movements in a free environment such as the sky,
where the movement of flying robots is influenced by wind
gusts, differences in altitude between nodes, kinetic restric-
tions for performing maneuvers or for changing speeds, for
example.
Wisitpongphan et al. [16] focused efforts on the creation of
three techniques for controlling BSP in VANETs networks,
using the probability and counter approach. They proposed
the weighted p-persistence, slotted 1-persistence, and slotted
p-persistence algorithms, which give vehicles more distant
from the broadcast source a higher relay priority. To deter-
mine the distance from the sender of the message, vehicles
need to determine their position using GPS or RSS. The three
proposed algorithms were used to mitigate the retransmis-
sions that were already reduced because the authors used
in this work the dissemination protocol called GrooveNet,
which is designed to disseminate messages within a limited
region specified in the message header. The results of the
simulations showed that the proposed algorithms were able
to reduce packet loss by up to 70% and maintained the end-
to-end delay in acceptable levels for the VANETs (vehicular
networks). However, the work scenario is very specific to
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 R. M. Pires et al.: Broadcast Storm Problem in FANETs and the Dynamic Neighborhood-Based Algorithm
VANETs, such as the routing algorithm and the dissemination
method, and makes it unlikely to be adapted for FANETs.
Mohammed et al. [17] propose the Efficient Counter-Based
Scheme (ECS) method for the control of broadcasts, which is
a combination of the simple counter method and the retrans-
mit probability method. This combination allows the node
to make the retransmission decision based on two statistical
thresholds. In this algorithm, the nodes also wait a random
evaluation period and count the copies received in that period.
In Mohammed et al. [18], the same authors adjust the ECS
method by proposing a new probability value and performed
simulations determined that P = 50% is a better value
compared with the previous one P = 65%, which avoided
further retransmissions and resulted in a relatively end-to-end
delay without degrading the reachability.
In both works, [17] and [18], the authors realized that
the approaches used were not comprehensive and the results
found were limited to the application scenario. Therefore,
in [19] they continued the work and made one more change
in ECS, when they abandoned the idea of a fixed probability
of retransmission and proposed a function that calculates the
probability based on the average number of neighbors. In this
last work, however, the average size of the neighborhood is
fixed.
The simulation results revealed that using a neighborhood-
dependent probability threshold achieved mitigation rates
about 20% higher than in the meter-only, dense network
method, and the end-to-end delay was about 26% lower
without sacrificing range in medium to dense networks.
The work [20], [21] was focused on investigating meth-
ods to improve the quality of the communication network
between UAVs.
In [20] the authors emphasize the applicability of the IEEE
802.11 standard for mobility environments in the 3D plane,
although other works have only evaluated it with nodes mov-
ing in two dimensions. They propose a rearrangement of the
antennas of the nodes so that the signal coverage is made
equally in the three dimensions.
Multiple antennas are coupled on a small quadricopter and
also on the ground communication station and the receivers
use the Simple Combination Selection technique to choose
the antenna with the strongest signal. In the paper is still eval-
uated the communication between two UAVs in the air where
the relative orientation of an airplane changed constantly with
respect to the other.
They showed that the signal attenuation model called
Rayleigh fading is not appropriate for a scenario of UAVs, so,
based on the results of [22], they used the Nakagami fading
to calculate the signal density function.
The multi-hop capabilities were evaluated in [21]. In this
work, the authors extend the analysis to a multi-sender and
multi-hop network configuration. This configuration repre-
sents the scenario of a FANET, where UAVs are flying in for-
mation or cooperation and are intermittently connected to the
ground station. The performance evaluation was focused on
the provision of coverage with high flow and with impartiality
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in the retransmission of the nodes in this intermittently con-
nected network.
The works [20] and [21] have used shelf components to
establish communication networks for UAVs and to make
performance and quality assessments of those networks.
However, these works still limited the number of nodes
involved or the continuous movement of the aircraft. After
all, not all nodes of a FANET are able to hover in the air, as is
the case with fixed-wing UAVs, for example. This forces new
experiments to be performed and new results observed.
The papers [23]–[26] are focused in mitigation problem but
the work scenario is also very specific to VANETs, such as the
routing algorithm and the dissemination method, and makes
it unlikely to be adapted for FANETs, so they not present
solutions that can be used in the scope of this paper.
Summarizing, papers in this area seek solutions for the
control and broadcast storm mitigation, [8], [12], [13], [15],
[16], [20], [21]. This summarization is presented in Figure 2.
Other papers test the use of alternative types of data links
[27]–[34], develop or improve routing algorithms for ad hoc
networks [35]–[49], and even look for integrating different
aerial platforms to provide broader signal coverage [33], [50].
These other solutions are not detailed because they are out of
the scope of this paper.
B. PROBLEM INVESTIGATION
The constant nodes movement in three dimensions is one of
the most distinct characteristics of FANETs, which causes
new problems related to communication. Because of the high
mobility and variations in the distance among nodes, fluc-
tuations in communication links often occur. The formation
of new links, the breaking of existing ones, or the variation
of link quality – a typical aspect of intermittently connected
networks – directly affects the FANET link layer [51]. That,
in turn, affects the network layer, often invalidating IP routes.
The repetitive search for paths in the network after each
packet delivery becomes exhaustive and can lead to the
broadcast storm problem (BSP). So, this type of search is
also not ideal for maintaining a routing table in this kind of
intermittent network.
Factors such as the increasing interest on multi-UAV
applications; the growing volume of data being transported
between aircraft and their base stations; the high number of
manned airplanes that compete for airspace; and the pro-
gressive entry of unmanned aircraft into the dispute for this
space have demanded a distinct network architecture and with
capabilities such as those enabled by FANETs.
UAV radio signals are omnidirectionally propagated, thus
the same region may be covered by signals from sev-
eral nodes, which causes problems such as redundant –
therefore unnecessary – rebroadcasting, wireless medium
contention and packet collisions [8]. The Request-to-
Send/Clear-to-Send (RTS/CTS) dialog is not applicable due
to the congestion problem that it induces in MANETs [52].
The adoption of broadcasting to spread information over
dynamic networks such as general MANETs is an ideal
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R. M. Pires et al.: Broadcast Storm Problem in FANETs and the Dynamic Neighborhood-Based Algorithm
FIGURE 2. Works related to retransmission control in ad hoc mobile networks, since 2002.
solution, but using flooding as a method is a problem. The
difference between the two concepts is that flooding aims to
reach out all nodes in the network, and the purpose of broad-
casting is to deliver a message to all reachable nodes in the
network only once, which would avoid packet redundancy in
the network and its resultant problems. However, nowadays,
that is still a major challenge in wireless ad hoc networks
where nodes need intermediate relays to communicate.
As UAVs become operationally more efficient and safe,
battery life expands, and regulatory constraints reduce, new
business models will begin to develop, thus pulling demand
forces that are presently latent. As a result, the US Fed-
eral Aviation Administration (FAA) foresees a scenario with
commercial UAS’ cumulative annual growth rates of up
to 46% [53]. One of the main concerns in this airspace sharing
is that the network traffic of FANET must be distributed in
such a way that it does not disturb commercial flights or the
communication among the nodes that fly at high altitudes in
a network.
In the context of broadcast communication in wireless ad
hoc networks, many research in reliable data dissemination
protocols have been carried out for MANETs and VANETs
and could also be derived for FANETs. Due to continual devi-
ations in the network density, these protocols must achieve a
high degree of resilience, being able to deal with frequent link
breakage and re-establishment. In sparse networks, protocols
incorporate store-carry-forward mechanisms to take advan-
tage of the mobility of vehicles in search of high reachability
rates. In dense networks, suppression techniques are designed
to prevent the BSP but have not achieved optimal solutions for
multi-directional dissemination [54].
This paper aims to present the challenges of spreading
information in FANETs using broadcast as strategy. To the
best of our knowledge, we did not find any literature occur-
rence of BSP results in realistic FANET simulation with
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omnidirectional antennas, being this work the first to present
the numbers for this problem.
C. CONTRIBUTIONS
It is of paramount importance that results of computer simu-
lation are reliable, then we did not use models that could lead
to unrealistic results. So, our first contribution to the state of
the art is the elaboration of a realistic simulation environment,
based on outdoor experimentation.
We also made a discussion about mobility models and
then further improved FANET simulations adding parameters
more appropriate to UAVs than others commonly found in the
literature, which are applied to generic MANET nodes.
Another significant contribution of this work is the pio-
neering experimentation of broadcast communication in
FANETs using cooperative relaying without retransmission
control. In this paper we show the resultant network con-
tention and go into details about the broadcast storm problem
in FANETs comprised of more than three UAVs.
We discuss the necessity and the benefits of retransmission
control in critical environments, and as our last contribution
to this research field, we present our approach for mitigating
broadcast retransmission that autonomously adapts broadcast
communication in FANETs, considering the dynamic varia-
tions in neighborhood size. Results of comparison with three
well-known broadcast mitigation algorithms in MANETs
show that our algorithm is much more appropriate for the ad
hoc network of flying nodes than the other existing ones.
II. EXPERIMENTS IN REAL SCENARIO
In order to build a realistic simulation environment, we have
carried out in a previous work [55] outdoor experiments with
prototypes to discover the network behavior in real environ-
ment. We tested a prototype quadrotor flight formation, which
runs a pre-programmed mission autonomously, exchanging
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 R. M. Pires et al.: Broadcast Storm Problem in FANETs and the Dynamic Neighborhood-Based Algorithm
FIGURE 3. The embedded platform called Gumstix Overo R Fire, which is
a computer on module (COM) kit composed by a 720 MHz ARM
Cortex-A8 processor with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and USB connections, used to
run the outdoor experiments. All four UAVs were emulated using these
boards.
data via broadcast. The network behavior was analyzed in
terms of reachability and saved rebroadcasts.
Our test bed consisted of four prototyping boards placed
in three topologies, aiming to embrace different situations
of flight formation in UAV swarms. The test bed represents
a UAV swarm formation, like the leader-follower formation
scheme, in which the speed is constant and flight movements
are coordinated thus their relative Euclidean distance is also
kept constant.
The prototype of UAV’s communication subsystem we
have built (Gumstix board and a 12 V battery) and the
three network arrangements are shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4,
respectively.
In that work, we have chosen three algorithms available in
the literature to experiment with the prototype boards [8], [9]:
(i) Simple counter-based, (ii) Fixed probability-based, and
(iii) Dynamic probability-based. They are shown in Fig. 5.
The first algorithm is the simplest one and is the basis
for the other three. It uses only one term to decide about
the retransmission, that is a reception counter – as sug-
gested by its name. If the duplication counter is less than a
threshold, then the message is rebroadcasted. We have used
threshold = 2 and threshold = 3 in our simulations.
The second algorithm enhances the first one by adding
a second term to make the decision: a retransmission prob-
ability threshold. If a duplication counter and a random
number are less than their respective thresholds, then the
message is rebroadcasted. We experimented threshold = 2,
threshold = 3, P = 50% and P = 65%.
In the first and second algorithms, thresholds are prede-
fined constant values originally suggested by Tseng et al. [8]
and experimented in [9], [17], [19], [56], and [55].
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TABLE 1. Design of field experiments [55]. C is the counter threshold
value, P is the probability of retransmission, A is the area of network
coverage, and R is the range of board’s signal.
The third algorithm is an enhancement of the second
one and was proposed by Mohammed et al. [19]. The
authors affirm that fixed values for retransmission prob-
ability are not likely to be globally optimal because the
performance depends also on other simulation parameters
such as topology size, transmission range, number of neigh-
bors, etc. Thus, the probability threshold (P) is calculated
considering the number of neighbors (N ), the transmission
radius of the NICs (r), and the network area (A). These
values are set on the simulation configuration because they
require previous knowledge about the network topology
and node’s radio capacity. The estimation of these values
might be possible, for example, by using information from
routing algorithms which is not under the scope of this
paper.
Eight experiments varying thresholds and retransmission
probability were run. They were modeled as described
in Table 1. In all experiments, node START sent 1000 mes-
sages, each one every 125 ms, emulating a mission in which
GCS sends eight messages per second to UAVs composing
the FANET. Each message had its Time-To-Live field set to 8
(the double number of nodes), because smaller values avoided
some messages to be received, and higher values induced too
much redundancy.
Each algorithm was evaluated regarding the amount of
received messages at each node in the three topologies,
the percentage of information received by the nodes, and their
capacity of broadcast mitigation.
The results of these experiments are included in Section VI.
With them, we were able to parameterize the simulation
environment so that it would lead to fair comparisons between
the results of empirical and simulated experiments.
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R. M. Pires et al.: Broadcast Storm Problem in FANETs and the Dynamic Neighborhood-Based Algorithm

FIGURE 4. Scenarios assumed for the investigation of how information spreads in a FANET composed by one transmitter node (Start) and four relay
nodes arranged in three different network topologies: (a) Topology 1, with up to 80% of signals overlap; (b) Topology 2, with up to 60% of signals
overlap; and (c) Topology 3, with 100% of signals overlap.

FIGURE 5. Three algorithms available in the literature for broadcast storm mitigation. All of them use constant local parameters to decide whether a
message should be broadcast or dropped.

In the simulation framework we developed the network the physical environment, the network configurator, and the
module, which is compound by the radio medium module, network nodes. The radio medium module emulates the

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 R. M. Pires et al.: Broadcast Storm Problem in FANETs and the Dynamic Neighborhood-Based Algorithm
TABLE 2. System parameters.
wireless medium where radio waves propagate. We used the
Ieee80211DimensionalRadioMedium model, which
requires a physical environment and a path loss model. The
PhysicalEnvironment model set the temperature and
the ground elevation. The IPv4NetworkConfigurator
model was responsible to configure the node’s IPv4 address
and to set their routing tables. Five AdhocHost modules
were used to model the nodes, which are wireless hosts with
ad hoc management scheme.
Those modules can be adjusted according to network
requirements, and we have carried out many different sim-
ulation runs in search for the more appropriate parame-
ters. Mainly, we have varied the background noise between
−120 and −85 dBm and the radio transmission power
between 5 and 50 mW. Six wave propagation models were
simulated: (i) NakagamiFading, (ii) RicianFading,
(iii) RayleighFading, (iv) LogNormalShadowing,
(v) TwoRayGroundReflection, and (vi) FreeSpace-
PathLoss.
After analyzing the results of every model variations,
the parameters presented in Table 2 were chosen to represent
the field environment in the simulations.
The real environment is a stochastic process; it is impos-
sible to replicate the exact scenario of our field experiments,
with exact interferences from outdoor signals, obstacles such
as buildings and trees, and the wave reflections from the
ground and moving cars, for example. This kind of processes
are modeled and tested to operate like the real environment,
but we can not use absolute values because, by nature, they
will always be different. However, the percentages of received
information – which represent the behavior of the evaluated
algorithms – are of great importance and were considered in
our evaluation. The final results are shown in Table 3.
With these results, we moved to the next steps, adding
mobility to nodes, varying the network density and checking
the impact of flooding in a FANET network.
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TABLE 3. Comparison of information received by each node in real and
simulated environments. Percentages of algorithm 1 are averages of
experiments #1 and #2. Percentages of algorithm 2 are averages of
experiments #3, #4, #5 and #6. Percentages of algorithm 3 are averages
of experiments #7 and #8.
III. THE MOBILITY MODEL
Mobility models provide to nodes two basic abilities: (i) to
move around the simulation playground, and (ii) to change
the velocity during simulation time. As we have set three
dimensions to the mobility model, UAVs are able to fly over
the simulation area.
Some mobility models that are used in FANETs include
([45], [57]–[59]): Mission Plan-based model, Semi-Random
Circular Movement, Random Waypoint Mobility, and
Gauss-Markov Mobility. In Mission Plan-Based model,
the flight plan is predefined, and the aircraft move along
the planned path wherever they can reach mission space
and the target location is accessible. In Semi-Random Cir-
cular Movement model, UAVs fly circular paths around an
area capturing information about an underlying region. The
Gauss-Markov Mobility model is used in simulations of
swarm behavior, where the movement of the UAVs are cor-
related to each other, and in simulations where mobile nodes
have to be forced away from the edges of the playground
area. We considered the swarm behavior in simulations
with no relative mobility, which we present in more detail
in Section IV.
The model we have adopted in simulations with mobility
is the Random Waypoint Mobility, which is a widely used
mobility model in simulation of mobile ad hoc networks
([45], [57], [58], [60]–[70]). We have chosen it due to the fact
that UAVs in this model fly straight paths between random
waypoints, free and independently from other UAVs in the
same network area limits. In this mobility model, mobile
nodes can stay at waypoints for a period (i.e., a pause time),
but in our simulation, we did not use this characteristic
because we would be limiting our analysis to hovering aircraft
only, which is not desired.
Fig. 6 illustrates three-dimensional paths flown by four
UAVs during a simulation run, in a cuboid of sides
1000 m × 2000 m × 80 m.
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FIGURE 6. Three dimensional trajectory of UAVs during simulations using
the Random Waypoint Mobility model.
FIGURE 7. Variation of UAV’s speed during experiments, generated by the
uniform distribution function U (12 mps, 25 mps).
One vital feature to UAVs is a collision avoidance sys-
tem. Although it is desired that realistic mobility models for
FANETs consider this aspect, our framework did not include
this feature in any mobility model available, so we have not
simulated collision avoidance behavior. Our motivation in
this work is to analyze the communication among UAVs in a
FANET, thus we considered that a collision avoidance system
does not influence the FANET performance.
UAVs’ speed also randomly changed during simulation and
the value was generated by a uniform distribution in the range
[12 mps, 25 mps]. A representation of its variation in one
replication of a simulation is shown in Fig. 7.
Velocity variation may speed up fuel consumption or bat-
tery discharge in UAVs. Fuel and power consumption are
stochastic processes that are out of this paper’s scope. Works
in this topic suggest that UAVs’ battery still has the majority
of its charge when the mission reaches the 125 seconds
mark ( [71], [72]), even micro aerial vehicles, so we did not
consider a finite power source in this work. Instead, we have
simulated a mission with 125 seconds of duration, thus we
considered that FANET UAVs have sufficient battery power
to accomplish the mission.
With the use of the Random Waypoint mobility model,
the variation of both the flight speed and the Euclidean
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TABLE 4. Simulation parameters.
distance among UAVs, and the variation of the network
density, it is no longer possible to hold the FANET nodes
in those three static network topologies mentioned before
(Fig. 4). The results we present in the following sections
will, then, be split into simulations with four UAVs fixed into
three static topologies, and simulations with more than three
UAVs moving around the network area, where the topology
is dynamically changed (simply put as dynamic topology).
IV. FLOODING SIMULATION
We have simulated FANETs where GCS periodically broad-
casts messages, and all intermediate nodes immediately
retransmit them as soon as they were received. This is how
the simple flooding algorithm works.
In our simulations, an application running at the GCS sent
1000 different messages at a rate of 8 messages per second.
The application has generated messages with 1024 bytes,
and UDP (User Datagram Protocol), IP (Internet Protocol)
and MAC (Medium Access Control) protocol encapsulations
added up 64 bytes. At the end of stacking, packets were broad-
casted with the size of 1088 bytes. The application running at
the relay nodes immediately retransmitted the messages as
soon as they were received at the application layer.
Our FANET used the IEEE 802.11g protocol, which has
a 54 Mbps traffic capacity and 2346 Bytes maximum frame
size [73], [74]. Therefore, each frame was able to carry one
message without fragmentation. We have chosen that Wi-Fi
standard because it is widely available in civilian small-scale
drones.
Based on a realistic parameterization of the simulation
environment, we carried out two types of experimentation:
with and without mobility.
The first flooding simulation we run had four UAVs. In the
second, we varied the number of UAVs, their speed, and their
3D position.
We carried out these flooding simulations to demonstrate
the occurrence of the broadcast storm problem and to show its
impact on the network. Tables 2 and 4 summarize simulation
environments.
The application running at GCS generated 68 kilobits
per second, which represents only 0.12% of the nominal
network capacity. Because of the GCS’s irrelevant use of the
network, we do not consider its impact in our analysis.
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FIGURE 8. The average number of messages received by each FANET’s node. These values are the arithmetic mean between each
simulation replication of the flooding algorithm. Transparent areas represent the number of frames that arrived with errors and were
discarded by the MAC protocol, thus, not being received by the application layer. (a) Simulations with four UAVs under three fixed and
one dynamic topology. (b) Simulations with more than three UAVs, under dynamic topology.

A. DATA REDUNDANCY TABLE 5. Average redundancy of application messages caused by

flooding.
The first analysis of flooding impact is about data redundancy
on the network.
GCS sent out 1000 individual messages to the network, and
in Fig. 8(a) we can see that the unrestrained retransmissions
have multiplied this number to an order of hundreds of thou-
sands.
The broadcast operation is intrinsic to FANETs and mobile
ad hoc networks due to broadcasting nature of radio transmis-
sion [75]–[77]. However, broadcast is not reliable because
no acknowledgment is made and can interfere with other
transmissions, as in the topologies given in Fig. 4, causing
(i) the exposed terminal problem and (ii) the hidden terminal
problem. Exposed terminal problem occurs when a node is
prevented from sending packets to other nodes because of a
nearby transmitter, either when the node detects the neigh-
bor’s transmission and backs off for a while, or when packets not present because they are only pertinent to unicasting
transmitted simultaneously by neighbors collide and cannot on infrastructured networks. The lack of these mechanisms
be successfully received. The hidden terminal problem occurs makes the FANET radio channel more susceptible to errors
when an intermediate node receives, at the same time, two when there are many broadcast communications in a short
incoming transmissions from two neighbors that are out of period of time, then all nodes had received some erroneous
range from each other. data even when they were static – under topologies 1 and 2.
In FANETs based on Wi-Fi technology, hosts are equipped Moreover, UAV’s movements cause fluctuation on radio
with CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Col- waves and instability to the data link. As a consequence,
lision Avoidance) transceivers, but there is no use of we can note in Fig. 8 that erroneous data reception was more
CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision severe under dynamic topologies than under static topologies.
Detection) [73], [74], [78] to detect the hidden node problem A different view of these data, shown in Table 5, reveal the
and packet collisions on the medium. Also, the RTS/CTS excessive percentage of redundant messages flowing through
dialogue and the acknowledgment of received frames are the network. It is proof of unwarranted use of the wireless

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FIGURE 9. The average number of messages broadcasted by each of the FANET’s node. These values are the arithmetic mean between
each simulation replication. Transparent areas represent the number of messages discarded at the MAC layer due to lack of space in the
output buffer. The sum of the transparent and colored areas is equal to the total number of messages sent by the application down into
the UDP/IP stack. It is also equal to the number of messages received correctly. (a) Simulations with four UAVs under three fixed and
one dynamic topology. (b) Simulations with more than three UAVs, under dynamic topology.

channel, reducing the useful bandwidth, overloading hosts’
processor, and wasting energy – a resource which must be
saved to prolong flight time.
At this point, it is possible to notice that the message
redundancy tends to increase as the FANET gets denser. It
happens because the network area is always the same, and the
number of neighbors increases but their relative distance does
not. Then, the number of overlapping signals also increases,
making many UAVs receive and retransmit the same mes-
sages in parallel.
It is possible to observe that the redundancy does not
increase at the same rate of node numbers, i.e., the redun-
dancy does not double or triple as the number of UAVs
increases by 2 or 3. This behavior is related to the channel dis-
pute and the amount of erroneous data received. In addition to
connection instability – caused by UAVs’ three-dimensional
movements –, the denser the FANET is, the harder is to
control medium access, and interferences eventually occur,
increasing the number of frames received erroneously. That
is why the number of frames received by each node does
not increase at the same rate as the number of nodes in
FANET. This is a feature that only can be seen in a realistic
experimentation and is a contribution of this paper.
Every frame correctly received by the MAC layer was
sent up to the protocol stack until arriving at the application
layer, where a message was decapsulated, registered in logs,
immediately encapsulated again in a new UDP packet, and
sent down to the protocol stack to be broadcast in the network.
Fig. 10 illustrates these steps. Messages coming down from
the application layer are queued in the output buffer while
the CSMA/CA mechanism decides when is the right moment
to transmit them. When this memory area has no more free
space, new messages cannot be queued and are automatically
discarded.
When CSMA/CA senses the idle medium, frames are
broadcasted. When it detects that the medium is busy, new
transmissions are deferred in order to avoid packet collisions.
By postponing queued frames, the output buffer becomes
full, and new messages coming from the application layer
are discarded without actually being dispatched from the
node. One can see the impact of the transmission contention
in Figures 9(a) and 9(b), where we can note that the more
signal overlaps are present, the greater is the dispute for the
channel and the lower is the average number of messages
retransmitted by each node.
B. INFORMATION REACHABILITY
Each message sent by the GCS station had unique infor-
mation. Relay nodes replicate data when they rebroadcast
messages, and the information becomes redundant for nodes
that receive these data more than once. Therefore, nodes
relaying a message may be spreading data, but, due to redun-
dancy, they are not necessarily aggregating new information
or knowledge to receivers.
For that reason, when a node A loses one message relayed
by node B, it does not mean straightforwardly that some infor-
mation has been lost, since that message could be carrying
data redundant to A.

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FIGURE 10. Flooding flowchart, illustrating how frames are received at
MAC layers from PHY layer, goes up the protocol stack until it reaches the
Application layer. The Application layer, then, initiate the reverse path to
relay a message to the neighborhood.
In order to analyze the reachability of the information gen-
erated in a mission, this distinction between ‘‘data received’’
and ‘‘information received’’ must be clear.
Starting with the scenarios with only four relay nodes,
we can see in Fig. 11(a) (under topology 3) that UAVs
received more information in the shortest time among all
network arrangements, despite the greater redundancy shown
in Fig. 8(a). That is explained firstly by the stability of the
communication link, and secondly by the greater chance for
a message to be received when more copies of it are available
in the network.
When UAVs were moving, link oscillation (caused by the
variation of velocity and the Euclidean distances between
UAVs) caused data losses (shown in Fig. 8(b)) and kept
messages carrying redundant information on loop for long
periods. It resulted in a low percentage of received infor-
mation and a high end-to-end delay to deliver information,
as shown in Fig. 11(b).
The average delay on messages delivery in the best case
scenario (4 UAVs in topology 3) was 5.6 seconds and –
depending on the application – this time can be considered
acceptable for receiving or replying a request from GCS.
However, knowing that the UAVs were flying at a maximum
speed of 25 mps, the average end-to-end delay in the sim-
ulation with the denser FANET allowed UAVs to fly up to
140 meters away, from the time the message was sent until it
was received. If the FANET application were using broadcast
as part of the collision avoidance strategy, the average delay
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in this scenario (61.8 seconds) would have prevented this
strategy from succeeding.
At the beginning of each mission, all UAVs were in GCS’
transmission range, increasing signal overlaps. They have
been able to successfully receive the very first messages sent
by GCS, which were vastly rebroadcasted.
The output buffer of MAC layer had been filled with
duplicates of the first messages and emptied on three sit-
uations: (i) as outgoing messages were discarded due to
lack of space, (ii) as queued frames were rebroadcasted,
or (iii) when message receive was interrupted by link
disruption.
When UAVs were closer and link disruption was undone,
the same data was kept on the loop between the nodes within
the signal area because of the immediate and indiscriminate
retransmissions, preventing the reception of new messages
[sent by GCS in a substantially lower rate]. This unfavorable
circumstance led 1000 messages generated by GCS to an
uneven probability of reception.
It is possible to observe in the charts of Fig. 12 that few
IDs were excessively received because they were on a retrans-
mission loop – which explains the results of redundancy –
and that many IDs were barely received or not received at
all, producing low variability of information - which com-
plements the explanations about the decreasing percentage of
information collected in simulations with flooding when the
FANET gets denser.
The main objective of an application that rely on broadcast
to spread messages is to reach all nodes in the network.
So far we have proved that flooding is not the ideal strat-
egy to achieve this purpose due to the following reasons:
(i) increased message redundancy, (ii) increased information
loss, and (iii) delayed message delivery demonstrating the
broadcast storm problem in FANETs and explain the demand
for mitigation techniques.
In the following section, we present the evaluation of mit-
igation algorithms in FANET scenarios.
V. DYNAMIC NEIGHBORHOOD-BASED ALGORITHM FOR
THE BROADCAST STORM PROBLEM
One approach to minimize redundancy, and thus contention
and collision, is to constrain some UAVs from rebroad-
casting, diminishing the broadcast storm problem. Instead
of immediately rebroadcasting a message, a node stores it
in a ‘‘wait queue,’’ estimates redundancy and accumulates
knowledge to support its decision to rebroadcast the mes-
sage or not. This restriction can be made using mitigation
techniques that are classified in five groups: counter-
based, probability-based, distance-based, location-based, and
cluster-based [8].
The algorithms evaluated in this work (Fig. 5) compute
messages duplication within a predefined interval, or adopt
a predefined probability of retransmission, or decide based
on a predefined estimation of the neighborhood size.
After analyzing the results of these algorithms, we real-
ized that other factors could be taken into account, such as
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FIGURE 11. The average percentage of information received by each node and the end-to-end delay (in seconds) of each message’s
delivery, under different network arrangements. (a) Simulations with four UAVs under three fixed and one dynamic topology.
(b) Simulations with more than three UAVs, under dynamic topology.
(i) continuous sense of surrounding signals, to estimate the
number of neighboring UAVs and to compute the additional
coverage achieved by a retransmission; (ii) enlargement of the
waiting period before the decision, to increase the counter’s
effectiveness and decrease the Time To Live (TTL) impact of
the message; (iii) store information about received or retrans-
mitted messages rather than re-accepting a message after its
retransmission, and (iv) store information about neighbors
who are duplicating retransmissions. The GCS station could
also improve message parameterization by modifying, for
example, the TTL field according to the number of nodes in
the network.
One way to keep the percentage of received information
high is not mitigating many messages. Oppositely, the fewer
messages are mitigated, the more neighboring nodes increase
their counter, and as a consequence, more mitigation occurs
later.
This way, nodes nearest to GCS relay incoming mes-
sages, intermediate nodes receive and drop part of them,
and distant nodes are the ones who lose most of the
information.
Therefore, we have developed a broadcast storm mitigation
technique, which improves the Simple Counter-Based with a
list of messages sent in the last hour and uses the dynamic
number of neighbors to decide which message to retransmit.
We named it Dynamic Neighborhood-based Algorithm for the
Broadcast Storm Problem (DNA-BSP). For better compre-
hension, we present it in two parts.
VOLUME 7, 2019
Part I is written in Fig. 13 and takes into account the
evaluation of received messages.
When UAVs receive a message, the first task is to update
their list of neighbors with the address of the message’s last
hop (lines 2 and 3).
The second task is to verify if a transmission with the same
ID has been done in the last hour (lines 5 and 6). If that
data has been transmitted less than an hour ago, the received
message is discarded (line 9), because we consider this data
would not add new information either to the local UAV nor
to the neighbors, avoiding then to use the wireless medium
for redundant transmission. After discarding the received
message, the algorithm returns and waits for new incoming
messages. If that ID was transmitted more than one hour ago,
it is then removed from the list of sent messages (line 7),
the received message is not discarded and the next step is
executed.
The third and last step when receiving a message is to
check if there is already a message with the same ID in
the waiting queue (line 13). If so, the waiting message’s
counter is incremented, its TTL field is decremented, and
the received duplicate is discarded. Otherwise, that received
message is inserted into the queue, its counter is initialized
with 1, its TTL field is not changed, and a retransmission
timer is started.
At the application layer, the mitigation algorithms decre-
ments the TTL field when a copy of a waiting message is
received, so the information’s lifetime spans as expected by
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FIGURE 12. These dot plots present messages received over time, in simulations with mobility, where the network density was varied. The X-axis
represents the simulation time, in seconds, and the Y-axis, the unique ID number of each message, which was an integer ranged from 0 to 1000. Each
point (m, t ) represents a message m received at a time t by one of the FANET’s UAV. (a) 4 UAVs. (b) 8 UAVs. (c) 12 UAVs. (d) 16 UAVs. (e) 20 UAVs.
(f) 40 UAVs. (g) 80 UAVs.

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FIGURE 14. Estimation1 of memory usage (in Bytes) to store the list of
sent messages in each UAV. In our simulation platform, the container
overhead used 48 Bytes, plus 8 Bytes for IDs, plus 8 Bytes for the
message’s transmission time.

FIGURE 13. Dynamic neighborhood-based algorithm, part I: Reception

and evaluation of broadcast messages.

GCS. When a message is sent by the application down to the

protocol stack, the IP protocol decrements the TTL field, and
if the final value is greater than zero, continues to send it down
to the MAC protocol. Otherwise, that IP packet is discarded
and the original message does not leave the node.
Considering the case where one UAV receives one copy of
every message sent in the last 3600 seconds, and all of them
are retransmitted, 28,800 (ID, time) tuples would be inserted
into the list of sent messages. In a 64-bit architecture, that list
would occupy approximately1 450 KBytes of memory space,
and this is an acceptable demand for resources of computers
embedded in civilian UAVs that are able to realize missions FIGURE 15. Dynamic neighborhood-based algorithm, part II: Decision on
with one hour of endurance. retransmission of waiting messages.

Our simulations have run for 125 seconds, and the used
memory was less than 340 KBytes. Our measurements can
be seen in Fig. 14.
1 The data structure used to store message IDs and time of transmissions
in our implemented code is the std::map container, available in the C++
language. It uses the red-black tree, which in turn makes use of pointers and
other variables to keep nodes balanced. It is known that, in red-black tree
implementations, leaf nodes are not relevant and usually do not contain any
data. Theses leaves need not to reside in computer memory, and are com-
monly identified by a null-pointer. In order to save memory and execution
time, sometimes a pointer to a single sentinel node (instead of a null-pointer)
performs the role of all leaf nodes; all references from internal nodes to leaf
nodes then point to the sentinel node. For that reason, the real memory space
occupied by the list of sent messages may slightly vary, depending on how a
library implements that structure.
In this first part of our algorithm, two conditions are
evaluated about received messages: (i) if they were already
received and retransmitted in the last mission hour, or (ii)
if they are already present in the waiting queue. If any
of the above conditions are satisfied, the received data is
discarded. Otherwise, that data is accepted and inserted into
the retransmission queue. No messages are removed from this
queue in Part I.
When a message’s timer ends, this message is removed
from the waiting queue, and the decision on retransmission
or not is made in Part II (Fig. 15), taking into considera-
tion if (i) the message’s duplication counter is less than the

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FIGURE 16. Simulation results of the four mitigation algorithms in a FANET with four nodes within the three static topologies. (a) The average
number of messages received by each of the four FANET’s node. These values are the arithmetic mean between each simulation replication.
There was no occurrence of erroneous frames. Less is better. (b) The average end-to-end delay (in seconds) of each message’s delivery, under
different network arrangements. Less is better. (c) The average number of messages broadcasted by each of the four FANET’s node. These
values are the arithmetic mean between each simulation replication. All messages sent by the application down into the UDP/IP stack were
transmitted successfully. Less is better. (d) The average percentage of information received by each node, under different network
arrangements. More is better.

threshold, and if (ii) the actual number of neighbors had In simulations with threshold = 2, a copy of a waiting
increased since the last timer has ended (line 26). message’s data must have been received only once, so that

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FIGURE 17. Simulation results of the four mitigation algorithms in FANETs with more than three nodes under a dynamic topology. The
output buffer was able to handle all messages, so all rebroadcasts were done successfully. In (a), (b), (c), and (d) less is better. In (e),
more is better.

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message retransmission is approved. With threshold = 3, that
data is allowed to be received twice while the message was in
the queue.
When all conditions are satisfied, the message is then
retransmitted (line 27) and a tuple composed of the retrans-
mission time and the message’s ID is inserted into the list of
sent messages (line 28). Otherwise, the waiting message is
dropped (line 30).
The last task of Part II is to update the number of UAV’s
neighbors (line 32) and to erase the neighbors list (line 33),
so it is re-populated when new messages arrive.
Threshold values greater than 3 are not considered because,
according to [8], they produce more redundancy in the net-
work and do not provide additional coverage.
VI. DNA-BSP SIMULATION RESULTS
Simulation Results with the four algorithms and four UAVs
fixed in the three topologies are presented in Fig. 16. The
first noticeable fact is the drastic reduction of redundant data
flowing through the network.
Whereas the number of received messages crossed the
170,000-mark in the flood scenario (Fig. 8(a)), UAVs
received less than 4500 messages when transmissions were
being restrained (Fig. 16(a)). The DNA-BSP algorithm has
reduced 99.46% of received messages in topology 1, 99.71%
in topology 2, and 98.73% in topology 3.
The number of transmissions also decreased enormously.
UAVs transmitted more than 60,000 messages when they
were flooding the network (Fig. 9(a)), but this number
dropped to less than 2500 when mitigation algorithms were
running (Fig. 16(c)). The DNA-BSP algorithm was able to
efficiently reduce 99.91% of transmitted messages under
topology 1, 99.99% in topology 2, and 99.39% in topology 3.
It means were done almost no redundant retransmissions
when DNA-BSP were running.
One can also note that, unlike with the flooding algo-
rithm, no incoming packets were rejected by the MAC layer
(Fig. 16(a)) and the output buffers had not discarded any
message as well (Fig. 16(c)), showing that four static UAVs
moderately broadcasting did not generate enough traffic to
distort CSMA/CA performance.
In addition to the reduction of data redundancy, packet
collision, and network contention, another benefit is the
lower data latency. The average end-to-end delay decreased
from 8.3, 8.7, and 5.6 seconds (Fig. 11(a)) to 0.2, 0.37, and
0.16 seconds (Fig. 16(b)) in topologies 1, 2, and 3, respec-
tively. Therefore, messages are delivered up to 97.6% faster
when there is less redundancy in the network.
The broadcast communication is often used to control
flight formation, to avoid collision between UAVs, to manage
mission progress or to update IP routes within the network,
and reducing the channel dispute is beneficial in the sense
that more bandwidth is available to the traffic of other types
of data like imagery generated or data collected by the UAVs.
On the other hand, we can observe in simulations with
less redundancy, that nodes received less information in some
59754
cases (Fig. 16(d)). It happens because information does not
reach nodes farther from GCS due to intermediate mitigation.
By observing the results, we can see that the algo-
rithms maintained the same behavior in simulations with and
without mobility: the one which mitigates more messages
decreases redundancy and latency, but increases the loss of
information.
In simulations with mobile UAVs, there was also a noto-
rious decline in the number of frames that arrived with
errors (Fig. 17(a)), the number of messages received correctly
(Fig. 17(b)), and the delay on message delivery (Fig. 17(c))
in comparison with results of the flooding algorithm
(Figures 8(b) and 11(b), respectively).
We can view in Fig. 17(d) that as long as the FANET gets
denser, the mitigation algorithms tend to be more efficient,
diminishing much of the transmissions, increasing the per-
centage of information spread (Fig. 17(e)) and providing a
faster delivery (Fig. 17(c)), such as less than half a second.
As DNA-BSP accumulates more knowledge than the others,
its efficiency is higher than the others.
The broadcast storm mitigation algorithms use the store-
carry-forward technique to accumulate knowledge about data
before deciding on retransmission, which is more appropriate
than the flooding for multi-hop mobile wireless networks
with intermittent connectivity – like FANETs – and has led
to a decline in the number of redundant messages on the
network.
The interruption of the loops that occurred in the flood-
ing simulations allowed newer information to have a higher
chance of being retransmitted, thus increasing the percentage
of information received by the nodes.
The FANET network is designed so that a mission can be
performed jointly by multiple UAVs, and taking up part of
the capacity of the wireless medium with expendable data can
weaken the mission accomplishment.
Depending on the use of the broadcast technique, when
information losses occur – due to excessive mitigation or
transmission failures – the application may generate duplicate
requests as an attempt to correct such loss. This rise in net-
work demand would then be a consequence of the inefficiency
of mitigation methods.
In addition to characterizing the BSP problem and present-
ing the advantages of using mitigation algorithms, we have
shown that the more an algorithm decreases retransmissions,
the higher is the loss of information at the application level.
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we focus on the broadcast storm problem that
occurs in flying ad hoc networks when information needs
to be widespread throughout the network. Our contributions
are the following. First, we present the broadcast storm
problem in a realistic scenario, showing all the numbers
and the system behavior when it occurs. Second, we intro-
duce DNA-BSP, a broadcast storm mitigation technique,
which improves the Simple counter-based with a list of mes-
sages sent in the last hour and uses the dynamic number of
VOLUME 7, 2019
R. M. Pires et al.: Broadcast Storm Problem in FANETs and the Dynamic Neighborhood-Based Algorithm
neighbors to decide which message to retransmit. Third,
we compare the best-known literature mitigation algorithms
with our solution. We based our proposals in (i) real data,
collected on experiments in an outdoor environment to deter-
mine the realistic parameterization and a reliable simulation
environment; (ii) the best-known algorithms existent in the
literature (Simple counter-based, Fixed probability-based,
and Dynamic probability-based); and (iii) wise decision,
since DNA-BSP accumulates knowledge about the past state
of the information and the current state of the neighborhood
to increase its efficiency, even with a higher number of UAVs.
As main conclusions, we can cite the performance behav-
iors that lead us to answer the most important question
of this work. That is, the question that studies the prob-
lem of the broadcast storms in FANETs and an appropriate
countermeasure.
Firstly, our work presents real experiments and simulation
results of broadcast communication in FANETs operating
with omnidirectional antennas, using numbers to show the
consequences of the broadcast storm problem.
Our simulations also highlighted that this kind of commu-
nication is really problematic in FANETs, and, although it
does not keep pace with the number of network nodes, data
redundancy does tend to increase as the FANET gets denser.
Using computer simulation, we have shown the negative
impact of flooding scheme in dense FANETs, causing high
rates of information loss, and high end-to-end delay, which is
the aftermath of the network contention.
Secondly, the demand for mitigation techniques was
explained. The best-known mitigation algorithms in the lit-
erature were evaluated and compared with each other. None
of these algorithms are generic enough, specially when the
number of nodes in the FANET increases. The reason is that
these algorithms do not have knowledge either about past
information nor the current state of the network topology.
Then, we proposed the Dynamic Neighborhood-based
(DNA-BSP), which we designed considering that,
in FANETs, nodes are flying – moving freely in 3-dimensions
– and the neighborhood size continuously changes. This
algorithm aims to perform better mitigation when considering
the literature mitigation algorithms.
Providing a high information delivery ratio while reducing
broadcast redundancy is still a major challenge in FANETs.
However, simulation results concerning the percentage of
information received by UAVs, the end-to-end delay, and
the mitigation efficiency of the algorithm have shown that
our mechanism outperforms the compared ones, improv-
ing real-time communication by reducing the delivery delay
in 95% and reducing the wireless channel’s use by transmit-
ting 98% fewer duplicates. Because DNA-BSP also accumu-
lates knowledge about the neighborhood, the efficiency of the
algorithm increases when the FANET gets more populated.
The purpose of this paper was to elucidate the BSP problem
in FANETs and to present an efficient solution to it. We sug-
gest that future works investigate the QoS of the wireless
channel in a FANET whose UAVs use the DNA-BSP, and
VOLUME 7, 2019
that improvements on DNA-BSP also consider mitigation
techniques other than the probabilistic ones.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The views and conclusions contained in this document are
those of the authors and should not be interpreted as rep-
resenting the official policies, either expressed or implied,
of the Army Research Office or the U.S. Government. The
U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute
reprints for Government purposes notwithstanding any copy-
right notation herein.
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VOLUME 7, 2019
RAYNER M. PIRES was born in Catalão, Brazil,
in 1987. He received the B.S. degree in com-
puter science from the Federal University of
Goiás (UFG), Brazil, in 2011, and the M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees in mathematics and computer sci-
ence from the Institute of Mathematics and Com-
puter Science (ICMC), Universidade de São Paulo
(USP), Brazil, in 2014 and 2019, respectively.
During his master’s period, he designed and
validated a plug-and-play protocol for intercon-
nection of UAVs and mission processors. In his Ph.D., he has carried out a
research on how to improve UAVs connection and communication during
a cooperation flight. He received a scholarship from FAPESP, the major
funding agency of São Paulo state. He has been publishing and participating
in a number of national and international conferences. His research interests
include wireless networks, network simulation, and information security.
Dr. Rayner is also a member of the Association for Computing Machin-
ery (ACM) and the Brazilian Computing Society (SBC).
ALEX SANDRO ROSCHILDT PINTO received
the master’s degree in computer science from the
Federal University of Santa Catarina, in 2003 and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from
the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in 2010.
He is currently an Adjunct Professor with the
Department of Informatics and Statistics (INE),
Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC).
He has published more than 50 international
papers (Journals, Conferences, and Book Chap-
ters) and also has achieved three IEEE awards. His research interests include
embedded systems, wireless sensor networks, and the Internet of Things.
KALINKA REGINA LUCAS JAQUIE CASTELO
BRANCO received the M.Sc. degree and the Ph.D.
degree in computer science from the University of
São Paulo, in 1999 and 2004, respectively. She is
currently an Associate Professor with the Depart-
ment of Computer Systems, Institute of Mathemat-
ics and Computer Science (ICMC-USP).
She has experience in computer science, with
emphasis on unmanned aerial vehicles, com-
puter networks, security, embedded systems, and
distributed computing.
Dr. Kalinka is also a member of the Brazilian Computing Society (SBC).
59757