An efficient and low-signaling opportunistic routing for underwater acoustic sensor networks

Abstract

Underwater acoustic sensor network (UASN) has been considered as a promising technique for ocean engineering. However, existing problems like long propagation delay, multipath interference and low available bandwidth are important issues in UASN. Based on the analysis of the UASNs characteristics, we proposed a novel protocol, named DUOR (Depth-based Underwater Opportunistic Routing protocol), which directs a packet to the sonobuoy on the surface in an efficient and low-signaling method. The contribution of DUOR is twofold: (1) minimizing signaling costs; (2) solving “void area” and “the extremely long forwarding path”. Simulation results show that the proposed DUOR outperforms the existing Depth Based Routing (DBR).