Floating Nodes Assisted Cluster-Based Routing for Efficient Data Collection in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Abstract

Exhaust research work has been carried out in the field of Terrestrial Wireless Sensor Networks (TWSN). Now, research penetration is moving toward Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs). The communication of UASNs has dependencies on acoustic instead of radio. Efficient data collection by the UASN seems a tedious job in comparison with TWSN due to the peculiar features of underwater communication. However, there is a way to accomplish efficient data collection metrics through the design of routing protocols by considering the unique features of UASN communications. In this context, we propose a novel scheme and we call it Floating Nodes assisted Cluster-Based Routing (FNCBR) scheme for efficient data collection in UASNs. In FNCBR, the network space is divided into cuboids to form clusters. Then, every cuboid is consigned with a floating node (FN) at the surface layer and two fixed cluster heads (CHs) are suspended at different depth levels. All CHs of cuboids are supposed to be connected with a floating node via a wired connection, while source nodes are haphazardly distributed in the whole network region. In FNCBR, source nodes are liable to send the sensed data either to the FN or to the nearest CH. The data collected by the CHs is moved towards the FNs, which further disseminate the data to the on-shore monitoring center via a Radio Frequency (RF) link. We conduct the simulations in Network Simulator (NS-3) to appraise the proposed FNCBR protocol with other clustering protocols (e.g., CVBF, BS-CVBF, and ANCRP) in terms of different performance metrics. After describing the results, a quantitative comparison table is also given. The FNCBR scheme is also evaluated in terms of multiple FN densities. The simulation outcomes justify that the proposed FNCBR scheme has given better results in all performance metrics than the baseline schemes.