Medium Access Control Protocols for Flying Ad Hoc Networks: A Review

Recently, flying ad hoc networks (FANETs) have been broadly applied to various civilian and military applications. Medium access control (MAC) protocols have attracted significant attention because of their impact on overall network performance. Owing to peculiar features such as high mobility and dynamic topology, however, the design of a MAC protocol for FANETs confronts challenges. Several MAC protocols for FANETs have been reported in literature. In early MAC protocols for FANETs, delay, throughput, and collision detection were the key design concerns. Recently, however, the design of an energy-efficient MAC protocol has become a new research focus. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there exists no survey on MAC protocols for FANETs. This study extensively investigates the existing MAC protocols for FANETs. In this paper, the MAC design issues in FANETs are presented first. Subsequently, the existing MAC protocols are reviewed and discussed from the perspective of major features, operational principles, advantages, and limitations. The MAC protocols are then qualitatively compared in terms of major features, characteristics, and performance factors. Furthermore, open issues and research challenges are summarized and discussed.