Probing Packet Retransmission Scheme in Underwater Optical Wireless Communication with Energy Harvesting

Abstract

Underwater Optical Wireless Communication (UOWC) is an up-and-coming technology to support the perception layer of the Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT). However, UOWC channel behaviors can lead to a reduction of IoUT network reliability, while UOWC sensor nodes usually face with the issue of energy limitation. In this paper, we propose a retransmission scheme, which utilizes probing packets and energy harvesting mechanism to solve these issues. The scheme could provide more reliable transmission and energy efficiency for UOWC-based IoUT networks. To investigate the performance of the proposed scheme, we provide an analytical framework based on a two-dimensional Markov chain model. The Monte-Carlo simulation is used to validate the correctness of our analysis. From numerical results, we highlight the advantages of our scheme in comparison with the conventional one. We also determine appropriate values of network parameters to optimize the network performance.