Distributed Routing Algorithms for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Abstract

Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UW-ASNs) consist of devices with sensing, processing, and communication capabilities that are deployed underwater to perform collaborative monitoring tasks to support a broad range of applications. The enabling communication technology for distances over one hundred meters is wireless acoustic networking because of the high attenuation and scattering affecting radio and optical waves, respectively. In this work, the problem of data gathering is investigated by considering the interactions between the routing functions and the characteristics of the underwater acoustic channel. Two distributed geographical routing algorithms for delay-insensitive and delay-sensitive applications are proposed and shown through simulation experiments to meet the application requirements.