An Efficient Geometric-Partition-Based Distributed Algorithm for Detecting Critical Nodes in Flying Ad-Hoc Networks

In FANETs, failure of any critical node (cut vertex) separates the networks into disconnected components, resulting in a degradation of connectivity reliability. Therefore, it is crucial to detect the critical nodes to ensure connectivity maintenance in FANETs. Since the existing distributed approaches for detecting critical nodes still suffer from high overhead and low accuracy, this paper proposes an efficient geometric-partition-based distributed algorithm for detecting critical nodes using a novel partitioned framework and geometric theory. The proposed algorithm is divided into two phases, the first phase can detect most of the nodes under the partitioned framework using local neighbor information, the second phase further detects the remaining nodes by identifying geometric cycles formed between these nodes. The simulation results reveals that the proposed algorithm further improves the accuracy, can detect critical nodes in large scale networks more efficiently than existing distributed algorithms, with lower energy consumption and faster speed.