Abstract
Flying ad hoc networks (FANETs) composed of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide flexible and infrastructure-independent connectivity in 5 G and beyond. Recently, cluster-based FANET architectures have been proposed in disaster and emergency scenarios to support search and rescue operations. However, their performance is severely limited by high node density and contention-based medium access. In this paper, a cluster-based hybrid medium access control (MAC) protocol is proposed in which the cluster head is equipped with massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) capability. An algorithm is presented to explain the mMIMO-enabled hybrid MAC protocol for cluster-based FANET. The proposed MAC divides channel access into a contention-based control phase and a scheduled data phase, where the cluster head exploits mMIMO spatial multiplexing to serve multiple UAVs simultaneously. Analytical study is carried out. Simulation results are provided, which show that the proposed protocol performs better than the traditional singleantenna cluster-based system.