The sound of communication in underwater acoustic sensor networks: (Position paper)

Underwater environments have never been much of a constraint to the rich animal life they support at all depths of our seas and oceans. Indeed, nature has taken advantage of this environment to develop a rich variety of efficient communication strategies through evolutionary change and adaptation. The wealth of knowledge to be discovered will continue to dazzle and fascinate the world. For underwater sensor network communication, acoustic signalling is the preferred choice for designers because sound propagation is the most efficient when compared to other forms, like thermal, light, and electromagnetic. It is within this acoustic environment that researchers have to innovate and develop new ideas and methodologies so as to advance the state-of-the-art. In this paper, several fundamental issues and connections are discussed that arise in the study of underwater wireless sensor networks. A variety of ideas and solutions for further research is proposed and fundamental issues in topology control, directional underwater transducers, and monitoring and surveillance are disc

Cooperative Authentication in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

With the growing use of underwater acoustic communications (UWAC) for both industrial and military operations, there is a need to ensure communication security. A particular challenge is represented by underwater acoustic networks (UWANs), which are often left unattended over long periods of time. Currently, due to physical and performance limitations, UWAC packets rarely include encryption, leaving the UWAN exposed to external attacks faking legitimate messages. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for message authentication in a UWAN setting. We begin by observing that, due to the strong spatial dependency of the underwater acoustic channel, an attacker can attempt to mimic the channel associated with the legitimate transmitter only for a small set of receivers, typically just for a single one. Taking this into account, our scheme relies on trusted nodes that independently help a sink node in the authentication process. For each incoming packet, the sink fuses beliefs evaluated by the trusted nodes to reach an authentication decision. These beliefs are based on estimated statistical channel parameters, chosen to be the most sensitive to the transmitter-receiver displacement. Our simulation results show accurate identification of an attacker's packet. We also report results from a sea experiment demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach.Comment: Author version of paper accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

A stateless opportunistic routing protocol for underwater sensor networks

Routing packets in Underwater Sensor Networks (UWSNs) face different challenges, the most notable of which is perhaps how to deal with void communication areas. While this issue is not addressed in some underwater routing protocols, there exist some partially state-full protocols which can guarantee the delivery of packets using excessive communication overhead. However, there is no fully stateless underwater routing protocol, to the best of our knowledge, which can detect and bypass trapped nodes. A trapped node is a node which only leads packets to arrive finally at a void node. In this paper, we propose a Stateless Opportunistic Routing Protocol (SORP), in which the void and trapped nodes are locally detected in the different area of network topology to be excluded during the routing phase using a passive participation approach. SORP also uses a novel scheme to employ an adaptive forwarding area which can be resized and replaced according to the local density and placement of the candidate forwarding nodes to enhance the energy efficiency and reliability. We also make a theoretical analysis on the routing performance in case of considering the shadow zone and variable propagation delays. The results of our extensive simulation study indicate that SORP outperforms other protocols regarding the routing performance metrics

An Underwater Sensor Network with DBMS Concept

In this paper is a concept of  a technique of sending and receiving message below water. There are several ways of employing such communication but the most common is using hydrophones. Under water communication is difficult due to factors like multi-path propagation, time variations of the channel, small available bandwidth and strong signal attenuation, especially over long ranges. In underwater communication there are low data rates compared to terrestrial communication, since underwater communication uses acoustic waves instead of electromagnetic waves.  we present a novel platform for underwater sensor  networks to  be used  for long-term monitoring of coral reefs  and  fisheries.    The  sensor  network consists  of static and  mobile  underwater sensor  nodes.   The  nodes  communicate  point-to-point using  a novel high-speed optical  communication system  integrated into  the  TinyOS stack,   and they  broadcast using an acoustic  protocol  integrated in the TinyOS stack.    The  nodes  have  a variety of sensing  capabilities,   including cameras,  water   temperature,  and  pres- sure.    The  mobile  nodes  can  locate  and  hover  above  the static nodes for data mining  and  they  can perform  network maintenance functions such  as deployment, relocation, and recovery.   In this  paper  we describe  the  hardware and  soft- ware  architecture of this  underwater sensor  network.   We then  describe  the  optical  and  acoustic  networking protocols and  present  experimental networking and  data collected  in a pool, in rivers,  and  in the  ocean.  Finally, we describe  our experiments with  mobility for data mining  in this  network. Keywords: Mobile sensor networks, underwater networks, data minin

Sensor Network Architectures for Monitoring Underwater Pipelines

This paper develops and compares different sensor network architecture designs that can be used for monitoring underwater pipeline infrastructures. These architectures are underwater wired sensor networks, underwater acoustic wireless sensor networks, RF (Radio Frequency) wireless sensor networks, integrated wired/acoustic wireless sensor networks, and integrated wired/RF wireless sensor networks. The paper also discusses the reliability challenges and enhancement approaches for these network architectures. The reliability evaluation, characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages among these architectures are discussed and compared. Three reliability factors are used for the discussion and comparison: the network connectivity, the continuity of power supply for the network, and the physical network security. In addition, the paper also develops and evaluates a hierarchical sensor network framework for underwater pipeline monitoring

Underwater spray and wait routing technique for mobile ad-hoc networks

1648-1655The underwater mobile ad-hoc networks comprise sensor nodes that are source nodes for gathering underwater-related data. Relay nodes are the mobile nodes for collecting data from sensor nodes and achieving intermittent connectivity among source and destination nodes. Developing an efficient routing protocol for underwater communication is a challenging issue due to limitations of the underwater environment. Underwater mobile ad-hoc networks are intermittent networks where end-to-end path does not exist from source to destination. To overcome these problems a delay and disruption tolerant network (DTN) is a good solution. In the current paper, we consider the Spray and Wait (SaW) routing technique. In SaW, source and relay nodes represents the moving nodes, and they try to send data to destination nodes. Based on this, we propose the replica based underwater SaW (USaW) routing for underwater mobile ad-hoc networks. In USaW, source nodes are fixed to the bottom of the surface. Underwater sensor nodes replicate sensor data and provide maximum copies of data to the relay nodes that they encounter. In generally, relay nodes have high capability of transmitting data as compared to sensor nodes in an underwater environment. We analyze the performance of USaW with respect to delivery ratio, network throughput, energy consumption, end-to-end delay, and packet drop rate comparing with existing SaW and prophet routing protocols

A Comparative Assessment of Floating and Submerged Sensor Network Deployments for Monitoring Underwater Sediment Transport Processes

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are a pioneering technology in many environmental monitoring applications owing to their ability to be deployed for long periods of time in locations that cannot be reached manually. One such use-case is the monitoring of underwater sediment transport, a process that plays a significant role in coastal erosion. Previous examples of WSNs deployed for this purpose have been in the form of underwater sensor networks (UWSNs), which have a number of shortcomings from both a practical and technical viewpoint. As such, this paper provides a comparative assessment of UWSNs and an alternative deployment approach of floating echosounding sensor networks for the purpose of monitoring underwater sediment transport