A Survey of Architectures and Localization Techniques for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

TLDR

Underwater acoustic sensor networks extend terrestrial wireless sensor network concepts to the marine environment, but face unique acoustic communication and mobility challenges that make localization essential for data tagging, node tracking, and protocol performance. This survey reviews the emerging architectures and localization methods for UASNs, aiming to synthesize current designs and identify open research issues. The paper first outlines localization fundamentals and oceanographic systems, then systematically surveys UASN architectures and localization techniques, concluding with performance discussions and future research directions.

Abstract

The widespread adoption of the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in various applications in the terrestrial environment and the rapid advancement of the WSN technology have motivated the development of Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs). UASNs and terrestrial WSNs have several common properties while there are several challenges particular to UASNs that are mostly due to acoustic communications, and inherent mobility. These challenges call for novel architectures and protocols to ensure successful operation of the UASN. Localization is one of the fundamental tasks for UASNs which is required for data tagging, node tracking, target detection, and it can be used for improving the performance of medium access and network protocols. Recently, various UASN architectures and a large number of localization techniques have been proposed. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of these architectures and localization methods. To familiarize the reader with the UASNs and localization concepts, we start our paper by providing background information on localization, state-of-the-art oceanographic systems, and the challenges of underwater communications. We then present our detailed survey, followed by a discussion on the performance of the localization techniques and open research issues.