🤖 AI Summary
Existing communication protocols for Flying Ad-hoc Networks (FANETs) are predominantly validated in simulation environments, neglecting real-world hardware constraints, software limitations, and cost considerations. Method: This paper presents a reproducible software–hardware co-testing platform based on Software-Defined Radio (SDR). Leveraging GNU Radio, we implement a multi-channel wireless communication system integrating an IEEE 802.11-compatible physical layer and a custom-designed multi-channel token-ring medium access control (MAC) protocol, enabling low-overhead, high-robustness inter-UAV position information exchange. Results: The system is experimentally validated in real flight scenarios with two UAVs, confirming the effectiveness and stability of the multi-channel mechanism. All modular source code, hardware interface specifications, and system architecture diagrams are publicly released under open-source licenses, significantly enhancing research transparency, experimental reproducibility, and practical engineering deployability.
📝 Abstract
SDR (Software Defined Radio) provides flexible, reproducible, and longer-lasting radio tools for military and civilian wireless communications infrastructure. SDR is a radio communication system whose components are implemented as software. This study aims to establish multi-channel wireless communication with FANET between two SDRs to share location information and examine it in a realistic test environment. We used multi-channel token circulation as a channel access protocol and GNU Radio platform for SDR software development. The structures of the communication layer, including the protocols, communication systems, and network structures suggested in the studies in the literature, are generally tested in the simulation environment. The simulation environment provides researchers with fast and easy development and testing, but disadvantages exist. These cause a product to be isolated from hardware, software, and cost effects encountered while developing and environmental factors affecting the communication channel while testing. Another contribution of the study is to present the developed block diagrams and codes as clear and reproducible. The developed software and block diagrams are available at github.com/knrl/uav-in-802.11-gnuradio.