A novel cooperative opportunistic routing scheme for underwater sensor networks

Increasing attention has recently been devoted to underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) because of their capabilities in the ocean monitoring and resource discovery. UWSNs are faced with different challenges, the most notable of which is perhaps how to efficiently deliver packets taking into account all of the constraints of the available acoustic communication channel. The opportunistic routing provides a reliable solution with the aid of intermediate nodes’ collaboration to relay a packet toward the destination. In this paper, we propose a new routing protocol, called opportunistic void avoidance routing (OVAR), to address the void problem and also the energy-reliability trade-off in the forwarding set selection. OVAR takes advantage of distributed beaconing, constructs the adjacency graph at each hop and selects a forwarding set that holds the best trade-off between reliability and energy efficiency. The unique features of OVAR in selecting the candidate nodes in the vicinity of each other leads to the resolution of the hidden node problem. OVAR is also able to select the forwarding set in any direction from the sender, which increases its flexibility to bypass any kind of void area with the minimum deviation from the optimal path. The results of our extensive simulation study show that OVAR outperforms other protocols in terms of the packet delivery ratio, energy consumption, end-to-end delay, hop count and traversed distance

PB-ACR: Node Payload Balanced Ant Colony Optimal Cooperative Routing for Multi-Hop Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

For a given source-destination pair in multi-hop underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs), an optimal route is the one with the lowest energy consumptions that usually consists of the same relay nodes even under different transmission tasks. However, this will lead to the unbalanced payload of the relay nodes in the multi-hop UASNs and accelerate the loss of the working ability for the entire system. In this paper, we propose a node payload balanced ant colony optimal cooperative routing (PB-ACR) protocol for multi-hop UASNs, through combining the ant colony algorithm and cooperative transmission. The proposed PB-ACR protocol is a relay node energy consumption balanced scheme, which considers both data priority and residual energy of each relay node, aiming to reduce the occurrence of energy holes and thereby prolong the lifetime of the entire UASNs. We compare the proposed PB-ACR protocol with the existing ant colony algorithm routing (ACAR) protocol to verify its performances in multi-hop UASNs, in terms of network throughput, energy consumption, and algorithm complexity. The simulation results show that the proposed PB-ACR protocol can effectively balance the energy consumption of underwater sensor nodes and hence prolong the network lifetime

A Survey on Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network Routing Protocols

Underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) have become more and more important in ocean exploration applications, such as ocean monitoring, pollution detection, ocean resource management, underwater device maintenance, etc. In underwater acoustic sensor networks, since the routing protocol guarantees reliable and effective data transmission from the source node to the destination node, routing protocol design is an attractive topic for researchers. There are many routing algorithms have been proposed in recent years. To present the current state of development of UASN routing protocols, we review herein the UASN routing protocol designs reported in recent years. In this paper, all the routing protocols have been classified into different groups according to their characteristics and routing algorithms, such as the non-cross-layer design routing protocol, the traditional cross-layer design routing protocol, and the intelligent algorithm based routing protocol. This is also the first paper that introduces intelligent algorithm-based UASN routing protocols. In addition, in this paper, we investigate the development trends of UASN routing protocols, which can provide researchers with clear and direct insights for further research

Co-EEORS : cooperative energy efficient optimal relay selection protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks

Cooperative routing mitigates the adverse channel effects in the harsh underwater environment and ensures reliable delivery of packets from the bottom to the surface of water. Cooperative routing is analogous to sparse recovery in that faded copies of data packets are processed by the destination node to extract the desired information. However, it usually requires information about the two or three position coordinates of the nodes. It also requires the synchronization of the source, relay, and destination nodes. These features make the cooperative routing a challenging task as sensor nodes move with water currents. Moreover, the data packets are simply discarded if the acceptable threshold is not met at the destination. This threatens the reliable delivery of data to the final destination. To cope with these challenges, this paper proposes a cooperative energy-efficient optimal relay selection protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks. Unlike the existing routing protocols involving cooperation, the proposed scheme combines location and depth of the sensor nodes to select the destination nodes. Combination of these two parameters does not involve knowing the position coordinates of the nodes and results in selection of the destination nodes closest to the water surface. As a result, data packets are less affected by the channel properties. In addition, a source node chooses a relay node and a destination node. Data packets are sent to the destination node by the relay node as soon as the relay node receives them. This eliminates the need for synchronization among the source, relay, and destination nodes. Moreover, the destination node acknowledges the source node about the successful reception or retransmission of the data packets. This overcomes the packets drop. Based on simulation results, the proposed scheme is superior in delivering packets to the final destination than some existing techniques. © 2013 IEEE