Optimal Clustering in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks: Acoustic, EM and FSO Communication Compliant Technique

Abstract

With a wide scope for exploration and research, underwater wireless sensor network (UWSN) is a fast growing research area in current scenario. UWSNs need energy efficient designing approach, because underwater sensor nodes are battery driven. Also the deployed batteries cannot be easily recharged by non-conventional energy resources, like solar energies. Clustering is an effective technique to design an energy efficient UWSNs. Due to the sparse deployment of nodes and dynamic nature of the channel, the clustering characteristics of UWSNs are different from those of terrestrial wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we focused on optimal clustering for UWSNs which are compliant with any one of the acoustic, free space optical (FSO) and electromagnetic (EM) wave-based communication techniques. Besides, we proposed an energy dissipation model of sensor node for FSO and EM wave-based communication and compared with the contemporary energy dissipation model for acoustic-based communication. In particular, the suitability of the above three techniques for underwater communication is investigated and their performance is compared on the basis of energy consumption and optimal clustering.