Unmanned Aeronautical Ad-hoc Networks (UAANETs) are infrastructure-less and selforganizing networks that are formed by small and medium sized Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that are deployed for a wide range of civilian and military applications.Having a reliable routing protocol for communication between the UAVs is critical. Our goal in this research is twofold. First, we enhance one of the existing routing protocols, the Reactive-Greedy-Reactive (RGR) protocol. In doing so, we propose the Optimized-RGR. Secondly, we propose the Enhanced Gauss-Markov (EGM) mobility model for UAANET simulations to replace the widely used, but unrealistic, Random Waypoint (RWP) mobility model.Simulations performed using the OPNET simulator show that Optimized-RGR outperforms RGR. There is a 5.3% increase in Packet Delivery Ratio at a negligible cost in latency. Furthermore, realistic mobility models, including EGM, show a lot of network partitioning. Therefore, this should be taken very seriously when developing a routing protocol for UAANETs. iv To my parents François and Jacqueline v Chapter 1 : Introduction Unmanned Aeronautical Ad-hoc Networks (UAANETs) [1] are a type of Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) [3], which are infrastructure-less and self-organizing networks. The specificity of UAANETs is that they are exclusively airborne and are formed by small and medium sized Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) [2] that can be deployed for a wide range of civilian and military applications. Those applications include, but are not limited to: rescuing or searching missions in the event of natural disasters such as tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes etc.; the establishment and maintenance of temporary Internet or telephone networks to allow communication in/with such devastated areas; tracking missions for the purpose of enemy surveillance on battlefield, border control, etc. In this context, having a routing protocol that allows efficient communication between the UAVs is critical for reliability and missions' delay. Designing routing protocols for UAANETs is very challenging due to the highly changing network topology that ensues from the high mobility of UAVs combined with their limited transmission ranges. In MANETs, thus in UAANETs as well, the routing protocols can be classified into two groups [4]: topology-based protocols and position-based protocols. Topologybased protocols are routing protocols where the information about the links in the network is used in order to establish and maintain routes. Among these topology-based protocols, we further distinguish proactive (e.g. Destination Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV) [5], Optimized Link State Routing Protocol (OLSR) [6], etc.), reactive (e.g. Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) [7], Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) [8], etc.) and hybrid (e.g. Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) [9]) protocols.In the group of position-based protocols, we have protocols that do not rely on link states. Instead, only the nodes' physical location information is essential. Those protocols are also called geo...