Cross Media Routing and Clustering Algorithm for Autonomous Marine Systems

Abstract

In the air-sea environment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) constitute the autonomous marine systems (AMS). However, the challenge is that the performance of underwater acoustic networks is much lower than that of overwater networks. Existing clustering algorithms cannot adapt to AMS well. Besides, existing routing protocols have not considered using the advantages of the overwater networks performance to improve the transmission performance of the underwater acoustic networks. In this paper, we propose a LEACH-based cross media clustering algorithm (LEACH-CM) and a vector-based cross media routing protocol (VBCM), both of them are applicable to the AMS environment. LEACH-CM can ensure the success rate of data transmission in a high-density node environment. VBCM can effectively select a link with a lower delay based on the estimated link delay. We also verify the effectiveness of LEACH-CM and VBCM through NS3 network simulation.