AirNet: An Information Management System Leveraging Unmanned Airborne Network Nodes

AirNet envisions a “network in the sky” of airborne network nodes on UAVs. AirNet has four layers: an Information Access layer, which allows clients to ask for information, publish information, and specify information needs. Clients can also specify parameters of identity, role and workflow, so that lower levels can intelligently manage their information; an Information Cache Management layer, which controls the information local to the user. It forms a virtual information space from the information available at other nodes. It utilizes the user’s needs, and other information, to intelligently (perhaps predictively) collect the information the user needs or is likely to need based on user mission/role/context. It also pushes information produced by the node out to other nodes as needed; a Networking layer, which manages the network along which the information flows, in a peer-to-peer fashion; a Network Node Management layer, which dynamically and proactively manipulates the actual network nodes to maximally satisfy data and quality-of-service needs. It can organize the nodes into an information cloud covering an area, a bridge between two distant nodes which have a need for a high level of connectivity, or dispatch a courier to a remote node as an information airlift.