OMRI–MAC: Optimized Multi-transmission Receiver-Initiated MAC in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Unlike terrestrial environment, the underwater environment possess additional and complicated challenges for wireless communication. For the underwater wireless communication, traditional radio wave communication is not feasible due to high channel fading and packet loss experienced high frequency communication that also reduces the communication range. Acoustic wave communication in dynamic underwater environment naturally inherits its own limitations that include low bandwidth, slow signal propagation speed, high packet loss and short communication range. Considering the UWSNs circumstances, protocols that can counter the high packet loss and low data rate are required. The MAC protocols designed for Underwater Wireless Sensor Network (UWSN) should incorporate changes in such a way that sensor nodes can have seamless and efficient communication while minimizing the effect of imposed constraints. In this paper, we therefore propose Optimized Multi-transmission Receiver-Initiated Medium Access Control (MAC) which considers harsh, lossy, and dynamic underwater environment. Our proposed method transmits optimized number of multiple packets to increase the successful packet delivery in harsh underwater environment with low data rate.