Underwater Sensor Networks: A New Energy Efficient and Robust Architecture

Salvador Climent,Juan Vicente Capella,Nirvana Meratnia,Juan José Serrano

doi:10.3390/s120100704

Abstract

The specific characteristics of underwater environments introduce new challenges for networking protocols. In this paper, a specialized architecture for underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) is proposed and evaluated. Experiments are conducted in order to analyze the suitability of this protocol for the subaquatic transmission medium. Moreover, different scheduling techniques are applied to the architecture in order to study their performance. In addition, given the harsh conditions of the underwater medium, different retransmission methods are combined with the scheduling techniques. Finally, simulation results illustrate the performance achievements of the proposed protocol in end-to-end delay, packet delivery ratio and energy consumption, showing that this protocol can be very suitable for the underwater medium.

Highlights

IntroductionShare common properties but they have many differences too
Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSN) and terrestrial Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN)share common properties but they have many differences too
We propose EDETA (Energy-efficient aDaptive hiErarchical and robusT Architecture) as a routing protocol for UWSN, which was recently adapted to this new transmission medium [4]

Summary

Introduction

Share common properties but they have many differences too These differences necessitate specialized new protocols for underwater communication. Cost of the nodes is one of the differences, as underwater wireless sensors are expensive partially because of their more complex transceivers. Another difference relates to the deployment costs. An UWSN has to be carefully studied and planed (in terms of performance evaluations, simulations, and tests) before its deployment. Power is another important difference since underwater communications requires higher power than the terrestrial network.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion