Energy-Aware Multi-UAV Routing Strategies for Low-Altitude Delay-Constrained Data Delivery Networks

Abstract

The rapid deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in civil and commercial sectors has introduced new paradigms for decentralized communication, particularly in environments lacking traditional infrastructure. In low-altitude data delivery networks, coordinating multiple aerial nodes to efficiently transmit information is paramount. However, these systems face dual constraints of strictly limited onboard energy reserves and stringent delay requirements for time-sensitive applications such as disaster response, medical supply delivery, and real-time surveillance. This paper investigates the complexities of energy-aware multi-UAV routing within delay-constrained low-altitude networks. By comprehensively analyzing the physical mobility dynamics and communication overhead of rotary-wing aircraft, a novel routing framework is proposed that dynamically balances propulsion energy consumption with end-to-end transmission latency. The study formulates the routing challenge as a multi-objective optimization problem and introduces a decentralized heuristic algorithm designed to establish reliable communication paths while minimizing the overall energy expenditure of the drone swarm. Extensive simulation scenarios evaluate the proposed methodology against traditional ad-hoc routing protocols. The analytical results demonstrate a significant reduction in network-wide energy depletion while consistently satisfying maximum allowable delay thresholds. The findings provide critical insights into the design of sustainable, high-performance aerial communication networks for next-generation decentralized architectures.