Mode Selection Schemes for D2D Enabled Aerial Networks

In this paper, we present and evaluate the effect of two mode selection schemes for device to device (D2D) enabled areal netwroks. The two schemes are based on a threshold received signal strength (RSS) and an average threshold D2D distance between two given users to select the D2D mode. While one scheme triggers the D2D mode based on distance values only, the other scheme can trigger D2D mode for larger distances if a minimum RSS value is received, for it to maximize connectivity regions. Numerical results show the advantage of the presented schemes in offloading traffic from aerial platforms and the effect of the environment on the performance of D2D enabled aerial networks.