A Clustering Scheme Based on the Binary Whale Optimization Algorithm in FANET

With the continuous development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology, UAVs are widely used in military and civilian fields. Multi-UAV networks are often referred to as flying ad hoc networks (FANET). Dividing multiple UAVs into clusters for management can reduce energy consumption, maximize network lifetime, and enhance network scalability to a certain extent, so UAV clustering is an important direction for UAV network applications. However, UAVs have the characteristics of limited energy resources and high mobility, which bring challenges to UAV cluster communication networking. Therefore, this paper proposes a clustering scheme for UAV clusters based on the binary whale optimization (BWOA) algorithm. First, the optimal number of clusters in the network is calculated based on the network bandwidth and node coverage constraints. Then, the cluster heads are selected based on the optimal number of clusters using the BWOA algorithm, and the clusters are divided based on the distance. Finally, the cluster maintenance strategy is set to achieve efficient maintenance of clusters. The experimental simulation results show that the scheme has better performance in terms of energy consumption and network lifetime compared with the BPSO and K-means-based schemes.