Enhanced reliable and energy efficient pressure based data forwarding schemes for underwater wireless sensor networks

Data collection in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSN) requires highly optimized communication approach in order to achieve efficient data packet delivery. This approach consists of different communication layers of which routing protocol is an important consideration. Several issues including packet entrapment due to void region, selection of forwarding node with insufficient link quality and packet collision in congested forwarding area have emanated. Therefore, three different research problems were formulated to address the issue of reliability and energy efficiency in data forwarding in UWSN. First, void handling for packet entrapment in the void region, which generate delays and communication overhead. Second, non-optimal node selection that causes forwarding delays and non-reliable packet delivery. Third, collision due to congestion, which leads to packet drop and unreliable packet delivery. Thus, enhanced reliable and energy-efficient pressure-based data forwarding schemes for UWSN were developed, which are the Communication Void Avoidance (CVA) to estimate neighbour nodes availability outside a void region in order to avoid voids and reduce delay; a Multi-metric Evaluation mechanism for next forwarder Node Selection (MENS) for optimal packet delivery; and a Congestion Avoidance and MITigation (CAMIT) in data forwarding for congestion and collision reduction in order to achieve reliable data forwarding. Several experiments were performed through simulations to access the performance of the proposed mechanisms and the results of each scheme were compared with related previously published protocols. The obtained results depict that the proposed schemes outperformed the existing schemes and significantly improved overall performance. CVA improved Packet Delivery Ratio by 12.8% to 18.7% and reduced End-to-end delay by 7.3% to 12.5% on average. MENS improved communication Data Rate by 13.2% to 15.1% and Energy Consumption improved by 10.6% to 15.3% on average. Lastly, CAMIT reduced Packet Drop ratio by 10.2% to 13% on average. The findings demonstrate the improved efficiency has been achieved by the CVA, MENS and CAMIT in terms of optimal node selection and reliability in packet forwarding in UWSN

Void Avoidance Opportunistic Routing Protocol for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Much attention has been focused lately on the Opportunistic Routing technique (OR) that can overcome the restrictions of the harsh underwater environment and the unique structures of the Underwater Sensor Networks (UWSNs). OR enhances the performance of the UWSNs in both packet delivery ratio and energy saving. In our work; we propose a new routing protocol; called Energy Efficient Depth-based Opportunistic Routing with Void Avoidance for UWSNs (EEDOR-VA), to address the void area problem. EEDOR-VA is a reactive OR protocol that uses a hop count discovery procedure to update the hop count of the intermediate nodes between the source and the destination to form forwarding sets. EEDOR-VA forwarding sets can be selected with less or greater depth than the packet holder (i.e., source or intermediate node). It efficiently prevents all void/trapped nodes from being part of the forwarding sets and data transmission procedure; thereby saving network resources and delivering data packets at the lowest possible cost. The results of our extensive simulation study indicate that the EEDOR-VA protocol outperforms other protocols in terms of packet delivery ratio and energy consumption

Void Avoiding Opportunistic Routing Protocols for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

One of the most challenging issues in the routing protocols for underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) is the occurrence of void areas (communication void). That is, when void areas are present, the data packets could be trapped in a sensor node and cannot be sent further to reach the sink(s) due to the features of the UWSNs environment and/or the configuration of the network itself. Opportunistic routing (OR) is an innovative prototype in routing for UWSNs. In routing protocols employing the OR technique, the most suitable sensor node according to the criteria adopted by the protocol rules will be elected as a next-hop forwarder node to forward the data packets first. This routing method takes advantage of the broadcast nature of wireless sensor networks. OR has made a noticeable improvement in the sensor networks’ performance in terms of efficiency, throughput, and reliability. Several routing protocols that utilize OR in UWSNs have been proposed to extend the lifetime of the network and maintain its connectivity by addressing void areas. In addition, a number of survey papers were presented in routing protocols with different points of approach. Our paper focuses on reviewing void avoiding OR protocols. In this paper, we briefly present the basic concept of OR and its building blocks. We also indicate the concept of the void area and list the reasons that could lead to its occurrence, as well as reviewing the state-of-the-art OR protocols proposed for this challenging area and presenting their strengths and weaknesses