AeroRP: A Geolocation Assisted Aeronautical Routing Protocol for Highly Dynamic Telemetry Environments

With the increasing importance of networked systems for telemetry, there is a need for efficient routing algorithms in aeronautical environments. Unlike traditional mobile networks, the highly dynamic nature of airborne networks results in extremely short-lived paths, especially for multi-hop scenarios thereby necessitating domain-specific protocols. In this paper, we present the detailed design and evaluation of AeroRP, a cross-layered routing protocol designed specifically for airborne telemetry applications. AeroRP exploits the broadcast nature of the wireless medium along with the physical node location and trajectory to improve the data delivery in Mach-speed mobile scenarios. We present a multi-modal protocol that addresses various operational scenarios of test and telemetry networks. Preliminary simulation results show that AeroRP significantly outperforms traditional MANET routing protocols while limiting the overhead.