An improved TDMA scheduling algorithm for swarms of AUVs using electromagnetic communication

Abstract

In this paper, an improved Media Access (MAC) layer protocol with Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) scheduling algorithm is proposed for swarms of Autonomous underwater Vehicles (AUV) using low frequency Electromagnetic (EM) waves. The exchange of global variables in swarms of underwater Autonomous Vehicles (AUV) becomes very useful for many practical purposes. So a scheduling algorithm with distributive control is used to achieve the necessary many to many exchange of global variable. The knowledge of the propagation delay which is present in the system is used to overlap node communication through scheduling and thereby increase the channel utilization. Modeling and simulation of the algorithm is presented and the results show that there is a significant increase in the channel throughput. © 2012 Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg.