An Unequal Clustering Energy Consumption Balancing Routing Algorithm of UAV Swarm Based on Ultraviolet Secret Communication.

Focusing on the tasks collaboration requirements of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarm in complex battlefield environment, it is especially important to ensure the reliability of routing communication within the formation. Wireless ultraviolet (UV) secret communication can meet the reliable and secret communication needs of UAV swarm in the complex atmospheric environment. Moreover, considering the limited energy carried by UAVs, in order to maximize the flight time of UAVs, this paper proposes an unequal clustering energy consumption balancing routing algorithm (UCEBRA) of UAV swarm based on UV secret communication. Combined the advantages of wireless UV scattering communication, this algorithm improves the selection threshold of candidate cluster heads (CHs) and the clustering conditions of nodes according to the performance of UAV nodes. Furthermore, a function, which can comprehensively reflect both distance and remaining energy of UAVs, is built in the process of inter-cluster routing, to balance the energy consumption of the CHs. The simulation results show that compared with low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) and energy-efficient unequal clustering (EEUC), the energy efficiency of the UAV network is increased by 21.7% and 4.6% respectively, and the lifetime of the network prolongs by 26.2% and 7.8% under UCEBRA algorithm. Therefore, the algorithm proposed in this paper can efficiently balance the energy consumption of nodes and thus prolong the lifetime of UAV swarm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]