On Performance Analysis for Random 3D Mobile AUV Networks With Limited Data Buffers

Abstract

In this paper, we consider a finite network of multiple mobile autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) collectingdata in a given region and transferring them to a surface sink. All AUVs patrol a cylindrical region and dynamically control their 3-Dimensional (3D) location according to the random way-point (RWP) mobility model. Our specific interest focuses on the system throughput under different locations of the serving AUV. The following three serving AUV selection policies are investigated: 1)The serving AUV is the closest AUV among all active AUVs; 2) The serving AUV is randomly selected among the active AUVs; 3)The serving AUV is the farthest AUV among all active AUVs. Under the time slotted network scenario, the system throughput is defined as the probability that the sink can successfully recover the data packet from the serving AUV in one time slot. Further, we consider a practical constraint that all AUVs are equipped with limited data buffers. Based on the probability distributions of the distances between the AUVs and the surface sink, this paper presents a mathematical framework to characterize the performance of the random 3D mobile network. With the help of this framework, we obtain the theoretical performance in terms of the system throughput of the surface sink and the average queue delay of any AUV. Finally, extensive simulations are presented to verify the accuracy of our analysis and study the effects of various parameters.