Topology Control of Low-Connection UAV Laser Network with Virtual Nodes

Space laser communication technology has advantages such as high bandwidth and low interference, but the limitation of the load capacity of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) makes it difficult for UAV clusters to have sufficient communication links to build a stable communication network. Aiming to address the problem of the low upper limit of the node degree of the self-organized network after the introduction of space laser communication technology for UAVs, a virtual node topology control (VNTC) algorithm is proposed for constructing an efficient and stable communication network structure. The algorithm is based on the unit disc graph model and achieves a lower-node-degree upper bound while maintaining connectivity through node pairing and virtual graph construction. The theoretical analysis and experimental results of the algorithm show that the algorithm can effectively deal with the topology control problem in UAV laser networks. In contrast to the XTC algorithm (exceptional topology control), the VNTC algorithm maintains the connectivity and most of the planarizability of the network, and, at the same time, it performs better in reducing the node degree and number of edges, thus providing an effective solution for low-connectivity topology control.