A stability-oriented enhanced OLSR protocol for highly dynamic FANETs using composite link quality

Flying Ad-Hoc Networks (FANETs) are aerial ad-hoc networks composed of multiple flying nodes. Due to rapid network topology changes and frequent link breakages caused by high-speed node mobility, traditional routing protocols from mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) cannot be directly applied to highly dynamic FANETs. To bridge this gap, this paper proposes a composite link -quality aware OLSR routing protocol for highly dynamic FANETs. The protocol fuses Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) and Link Lifetime through normalised weighting to construct a composite link -quality metric: RSSI captures instantaneous link robustness, while Link Lifetime predicts future link sustainability. Based on this metric, the protocol optimises Multi-Point Relay (MPR) selection and routing computation to establish a stable relay backbone network and reliable data transmission paths. The performance of the protocol is evaluated through the NS-3 simulator. The simulation results demonstrate that, compared to three classic protocols, the proposed protocol exhibits significant advantages in packet loss rate and throughput. It effectively overcomes transmission instability caused by high dynamics while maintaining acceptable delay and jitter overhead.