The choice of the appropriate networking protocol for
U2U communication depends on the nature of the application
that is used, which determines the following specifications
[27][13]:
Degree of UAV mobility: Some routing protocols have
good performance however suffer from a prohibitively
large number of control message overhead when the
nodes become highly mobile. This is the case since
discovered routes constantly break and new routes must
be discovered. Other protocols, such as geographicbased
ones are more appropriate in such environments
since they tend to have reduced overhead in such
circumstances.
Number of UAVs in the network: Some routing protocols
have good performance in small networks but do
not perform well in large size networks where other
protocols can be more effective.
The on-board processing capabilities: This includes the
kind of microprocessor and its ability to do complex
calculations.
On-board memory and storage capacity: Some of the
routing protocols require large space especially when
the number of nodes in the network increases. This can
be the case in a lot of UAV-based networks with small
size UAV.
Energy capacity and power consumption capability of
the UAVs: Some energy-aware routing protocols would
be more appropriate for use especially in small size
UAVs.
GPS capability in the UAV circuitry: This allows the
designers to use geographic routing protocols, which