Protocols for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks - Challenges and Solutions

Abstract

The underwater environment poses challenges for communication that can make terrestrial solutions ineffective. However, the mature terrestrial solutions are based on decades of real-world research and experience, proving their sustainability and reliability. Although not suitable for direct replication, it may be wise to take advantage of these proven solutions. With this in mind, it is valuable to study successful terrestrial approaches and evaluate their ability to support the harsh underwater environment, and to assess how procedures and algorithms can be adapted for efficient underwater communication. In this paper, we revisit frequently used Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols and discuss the challenges they face in the underwater environment. In addition, underwater challenges related to multi-hop data collection are discussed. To improve reception reliability in the highly dynamic underwater environment, we focus on broadcast solutions that are constrained to avoid network flooding. Location-based techniques look very promising in this regard. Related to the MAC layer, our recommendation is that underwater communication solutions should focus on preventing collisions at receiver, while reducing the time between packet reception.