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Analysis of Topology Algorithms for Commercial Airborne Networks

Civilian Airborne Networks capable of providing network connectivity to users onboard aircraft and users on the ground may soon be viable. We propose a novel airborne network architecture consisting of commercial aircraft and ground station gateways inter-connected with Free-Space Optical Communications (FSOC) links to form a high-bandwidth mesh network. The use of directional FSOC links necessitates explicit topology control, where a protocol must manage which links will point at one another to form connections. The algorithm used by the topology control protocol to form topologies must have low computation time, and must compute topologies that are robust, inclusive, and contain short paths between nodes. We use FAA flight path data for the aircraft en route within the continental United States during a 24-hour period to analyze the properties of airborne mesh networks, and compare candidate topology algorithms. In our simulation an airborne network with ground stations was able to continuously connect over 98% of the air-craft into a mesh network using FSOC links. We propose two new topology algorithms (DCTRT and DCKruskal+Long) which are extensions to existing algorithms. DCKruskal+Long appears to perform best for the metrics measured.