Management of surveillance underwater acoustic networks

Abstract

A Surveillance Underwater Acoustic Network (SUAN) is a sensor network specialized in the detection of sea surface or subsurface physical intruders, e.g., seagoing vessels. Network management provides the ability to remotely monitor and update the state of SUAN nodes. It is a crucial feature because of the difficulty of physical access once they have been deployed in sea or underwater. We explore three network management approaches: out-of-band, in-band and bio-inspired. Out-ofband management assumes the availability of high-speed wireless channels for the transport of management messages. The acoustic bandwidth of the SUANs is not directly used. In-band management uses the low date rate and short range underwater acoustic communication paths. Network management traffic is mixed together with data traffic. The bio-inspired approach does not require management traffic. Learning-by-imitation is used to transfer the settings node-to-node. It is useful in cases where it is really hard to convey information using messages because of harsh conditions.