Efficient vector-based forwarding for underwater sensor networks

  • Authors:

  • Peng Xie;Zhong Zhou;Nicolas Nicolaou;Andrew See;Jun-Hong Cui;Zhijie Shi

  • Affiliations:

  • Intelligent Automation, Inc., Rockville, MD;Computer Science & Engineering Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT;Computer Science & Engineering Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT;Computer Science & Engineering Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT;Computer Science & Engineering Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT;Computer Science & Engineering Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT

  • Venue:
  • EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking - Special issue on radar and sonar sensor networks
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Underwater Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are significantly different from terrestrial sensor networks in the following aspects: low bandwidth, high latency, node mobility, high error probability, and 3-dimensional space. These new features bring many challenges to the network protocol design of UWSNs. In this paper, we tackle one fundamental problem in UWSNs: robust, scalable, and energy efficient routing. We propose vector-based forwarding (VBF), a geographic routing protocol. In VBF, the forwarding path is guided by a vector from the source to the target, no state information is required on the sensor nodes, and only a small fraction of the nodes is involved in routing. To improve the robustness, packets are forwarded in redundant and interleaved paths. Further, a localized and distributed self-adaptation algorithm allows the nodes to reduce energy consumption by discarding redundant packets. VBF performs well in dense networks. For sparse networks, we propose a hop-by-hop vector-based forwarding (HHVBF) protocol, which adapts the vector-based approach at every hop. We evaluate the performance of VBF and HH-VBF through extensive simulations. The simulation results show that VBF achieves high packet delivery ratio and energy efficiency in dense networks and HH-VBF has high packet delivery ratio even in sparse networks.