  Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are characterized by frequent routing path
failures due to the high mobility caused by the sudden changes of the direction
of vehicles. The routing paths between two different vehicles should be
established with this challenge in mind. Stability and connectedness are a
mandatory condition to ensure a robust and reliable data delivery. The idea
behind this work is to exploit a new reactive routing technique to provide
regulated and well-connected routing paths. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or
what are referred to as drones can be both involved in the discovery process
and be full members in these discovered paths in order to avoid possible
disconnections on the ground when the network is sparsely connected. The
different tests of this technique are performed based on NS-2 simulator and the
outcomes are compared with those of related on-demand routing protocols
dedicated for VANETs. Interesting results are distinguished showing a reduced
end-to-end delay and a high delivery ratio, which proving that this
heterogeneous communication between vehicles and UAVs is able to extend the
network connectivity.
