Design of DRL Based Adaptive Routing Protocol for Bidirectional Communication Between UAVs and UGVs

Prabhakar Saxena, Gayatri Phade

2025

Abstract

The recent developments in coordinated networks, specifically of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) are found as game changer for autonomous systems. Existing routing protocols are typically designed for UAV networks or for UGV networks, separately. The seamless integration of these networks is essential to enhance situational awareness as UAVs can provide bird’s-eye view of the surrounding and UGVs can gather detailed ground level data. Deployment of these networks requires designing of the customized routing protocol enabling flawless communication between coordinated UAV network and UGV network platforms and a simulation framework to test it. This paper presents a design, implementation, and optimization of routing protocol engineered for specific requirements of coordinated network consisting of UAV and UGV. This novel protocol design integrates the Greedy Perimeter Stateless Routing (GPSR), for combining GPSR strategies, and Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to optimize packet routing. A simulator is developed in Python to simulate and test the proposed protocol. Simulation result confirms that the proposed protocol establishes the shortest and most efficient paths making it suitable for the many applications. By addressing the critical challenges in routing strategies for integrated UAV-UGV network, this research work paves the way for intelligent and adaptive communication solutions in dynamic environment.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Saxena P. and Phade G. (2025). Design of DRL Based Adaptive Routing Protocol for Bidirectional Communication Between UAVs and UGVs. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Futuristic Technology - Volume 2: INCOFT; ISBN 978-989-758-763-4, SciTePress, pages 144-154. DOI: 10.5220/0013588400004664

in Bibtex Style

@conference{incoft25,
author={Prabhakar Saxena and Gayatri Phade},
title={Design of DRL Based Adaptive Routing Protocol for Bidirectional Communication Between UAVs and UGVs},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Futuristic Technology - Volume 2: INCOFT},
year={2025},
pages={144-154},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013588400004664},
isbn={978-989-758-763-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Futuristic Technology - Volume 2: INCOFT
TI - Design of DRL Based Adaptive Routing Protocol for Bidirectional Communication Between UAVs and UGVs
SN - 978-989-758-763-4
AU - Saxena P.
AU - Phade G.
PY - 2025
SP - 144
EP - 154
DO - 10.5220/0013588400004664
PB - SciTePress