Reliability Evaluation of Underwater Sensor Network in Shallow Water Based on Propagation Model

Abstract

Underwater wireless sensor networks are composed of numerous vehicles/sensors that are deployed in précised acoustic vicinity to execute collaborative monitoring and data assembling tasks. These sensor nodes establish an acoustic communication link among them and the surface station. The unpredictable variations in the underwater parameters (depth; temperature; salinity; pH) introduce changes in signal speed randomly, which affect the link formation. Hence, designing a feasible channel model is essential to estimate the effect of underwater parameters and their losses (absorption loss, spreading loss) on the connectivity of underwater networks. In this work, an acoustic channel model has been considered which distinguishes the effect of frequency and the aforementioned parameters on link formation. A methodology for evaluating the reliability of the underwater sensor network deployed in shallow water scenarios based on the acoustic propagation model has been proposed. The network is deployed as 3D reference architecture, where the nodes are randomly deployed in a fixed scenario depth and the source node is deployed with an adjustable buoy length. The influence of underwater parameters, network parameters, and simulation time on the two-terminal reliability of underwater sensor networks has been analyzed. The simulation results indicated that the maximum reliability is achieved at lower frequencies when compared to higher frequencies.