Efficient Data Transmission Scheme for Massive High Altitude Platform Networks

Due to the wide coverage and station-keeping feature of high altitude platforms (HAPs), a large-area sensor network above remote regions can be achieved by the use of a mobile HAP ad hoc network. To realize efficient data transmission in the HAP network, we propose two schemes at the network layer and MAC layer, respectively. At the network layer, we propose a break and reconstitution (B&R) algorithm to construct an aggregation tree with minimum convergecast delay (MCD) for collecting data generated by each HAP. This scheme is beneficial in many monitoring systems, especially for time-critical and safety-critical tasks. In addition, a rapid parent selection (RPS) algorithm is presented to deal with the dynamic changes in the HAP network. At the MAC layer, we utilize a particle swarm optimization algorithm to optimize transmission and reception beamwidths to maximize the minimum transmission data rate. This scheme is beneficial for supporting tremendous data in the HAP network. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our proposed schemes through extensive experiments with real wind data and results show that they outperform some baseline approaches.