DRP: An energy‐efficient routing protocol for underwater sensor networks

The features of transmissions in underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) include lower transmission rate, longer delay time, and higher power consumption when compared with terrestrial radio transmissions. The negative effects of transmission collisions deteriorate in such environments. Existing UWSN routing protocols do not consider the transmission collision probability differences resulting from different transmission distances. In this paper, we show that collision probability plays an important role in route selection and propose an energy‐efficient routing protocol (DRP), which considers the distance‐varied collision probability as well as each node's residual energy. Considering these 2 issues, DRP can find a path with high successful transmission rate and high‐residual energy. In fact, DRP can find the path producing the longest network lifetime, which we have confirmed through theoretical analysis. To the best of our knowledge, DRP is the first UWSN routing protocol that uses transmission collision probability as a factor in route selection. Simulation results verify that DRP extends network lifetime, increases network throughput, and reduces end‐to‐end delay when compared with solutions without considering distance‐varied collision probability or residual energy.     

A reliable and energy‐efficient routing protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks

Recently, underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) have attracted much research attention to support various applications for pollution monitoring, tsunami warnings, offshore exploration, tactical surveillance, etc. However, because of the peculiar characteristics of UWSNs, designing communication protocols for UWSNs is a challenging task. Particularly, designing a routing protocol is of the most importance for successful data transmissions between sensors and the sink. In this paper, we propose a reliable and energy‐efficient routing protocol, named R‐ERP²R (Reliable Energy‐efficient Routing Protocol based on physical distance and residual energy). The main idea behind R‐ERP²R is to utilize physical distance as a routing metric and to balance energy consumption among sensors. Furthermore, during the selection of forwarding nodes, link quality towards the forwarding nodes is also considered to provide reliability and the residual energy of the forwarding nodes to prolong network lifetime. Using the NS‐2 simulator, R‐ERP²R is compared against a well‐known routing protocol (i.e. depth‐based routing) in terms of network lifetime, energy consumption, end‐to‐end delay and delivery ratio. The simulation results proved that R‐ERP²R performs better in UWSNs.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Graph‐based optimal asynchronous scheduling in large propagation delay underwater acoustic sensor networks

Optimal scheduling is essential to minimize the time wastage and maximize throughput in high propagation delay networks such as in underwater and satellite communication. Understanding the drawbacks of synchronous scheduling, this paper addresses an asynchronous optimal scheduling problem to minimize the time wastage during the transmission. The proposed scheduling problem is analyzed in both broadcast and non‐broadcast networks, which is highly applicable in high propagation delay networks. In broadcast networks, the proposed scheduling method reduces to a graph‐theoretic model that is shown to be equivalent to the classic algorithmic asymmetric traveling salesman problem (TSP) which is NP‐Hard. Although it is NP‐Hard, the TSP is well‐investigated with many available methods to find the best solution for up to tens of thousands of nodes. In non‐broadcast networks, the optimal solution to the scheduling problem considers the possibility of parallel transmission, which is optimized using graph coloring algorithm. The groups obtained through graph coloring are solved using Asymmetric Traveling Salesman algorithm to obtain the optimal schedule. The proposed method efficiently solves the scheduling problem for networks of practical size.     

An energy‐efficient utility‐based distributed data routing scheme for heterogenous sensor networks

A utility‐based distributed data routing algorithm is proposed and evaluated for heterogeneous wireless sensor networks. It is energy efficient and is based on a game‐theoretic heuristic load‐balancing approach. It runs on a hierarchical graph arranged as a tree with parents and children. Sensor nodes are considered heterogeneous in terms of their generated traffic, residual energy and data transmission rate and the bandwidth they provide to their children for communication. The proposed method generates a data routing tree in which child nodes are joined to parent nodes in an energy‐efficient way. The principles of the Stackelberg game, in which parents as leaders and children as followers, are used to support the distributive nature of sensor networks. In this context, parents behave cooperatively and help other parents to adjust their loads, while children act selfishly. Simulation results indicate the proposed method can produce on average more load‐balanced trees, resulting in over 30% longer network lifetime compared with the cumulative algorithm proposed in the literature. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一种节省能量的水声传感器网络组织结构与协议

本文为水声传感器网络提出了一种基于簇间协商的事件报告策略,网络节点以簇的形式组织起来,多址接入协议采用了一种适合水声环境的TDMA/CDMA混合式协议,建立了由簇头与网关组成的用于簇间通信的主干链路。仿真结果表明,基于簇间协商的事件报告策略能有效减少网络中的冗余通信量从而延长网络寿命。     

Beacon‐based routing protocols for underwater acoustic sensor networks

Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UW‐ASN) are provisioned with limited bandwidth, long variable propagation delay, limited available energy, highly unreliable acoustic channels, and random node mobility. Consequently, efficient data routing between source destination pair requires UW‐ASN to apply a technology different than terrestrial networks. For the past few years researchers have proposed many robust and efficient routing protocols for UW‐ASN, thus reviewing the challenges posed by stringent underwater environment. These protocols can be broadly categorized into localization based and localization‐free protocols. This paper presents a critical review of beacon‐based localization‐free routing protocols and suggest possible solution to improve the working of studied beacon based protocols. This work categorizes beacon based protocols into hop‐by‐hop, end‐to‐end, single, and multiple parameters based forwarding protocols. This categorization will help to differentiate and identify the requirements for the development of new beacon‐based protocols. Finally, this paper presents performance comparison based on simulation results and outlines the research gap and future directions.     

Coverage‐aware connectivity‐constrained unattended sensor deployment in underwater acoustic sensor networks

Careful deployment of nodes in underwater acoustic sensor networks in a distributed manner with the goal of maximized coverage and guaranteed connectivity is a challenging problem because it is very difficult and costly to access the 3D underwater environment. This paper presents a novel algorithm for self‐deployment of nodes in underwater acoustic sensor networks assuming that the nodes are randomly dropped to the water surface and form a densely populated connected network at the water surface. The idea of the algorithm is based on calculating an optimized depth for each node in the network in such a way that the possible sensing coverage overlaps are minimized and the connectivity of final topology is guaranteed. The algorithm has three main phases. In the first phase, nodes are organized in a tree structure that is rooted at the surface station. In the second phase, the depths for all nodes are computed iteratively at surface station. In the final phase, the calculated depths are distributed to nodes so that the nodes start sinking. The performance of the proposed approach is validated through simulation. We observed that the proposed approach performs at least 10% better in terms of network coverage than contemporary schemes in the literature. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

WCDS‐DCR: an energy‐efficient data‐centric routing scheme for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) typically consist of a large number of battery‐constrained sensors often deployed in harsh environments with little to no human control, thereby necessitating scalable and energy‐efficient techniques. This paper proposes a scalable and energy‐efficient routing scheme, called WCDS‐DCR, suitable for these WSNs. WCDS‐DCR is a fully distributed, data‐centric, routing technique that makes use of an underlying clustering structure induced by the construction of WCDS (Weakly Connected Dominating Set) to prolong network lifetime. It aims at extending network lifetime through the use of data aggregation (based on the elimination of redundant data packets) by some particular nodes. It also utilizes both the energy availability information and the distances (in number of hops) from sensors to the sink in order to make hop‐by‐hop, energy‐aware, routing decisions. Simulation results show that our solution is scalable, and outperforms existing schemes in terms of network lifetime. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

LRP: Link quality‐aware queue‐based spectral clustering routing protocol for underwater acoustic sensor networks

Recently, underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) have been considered as a promising approach for monitoring and exploring the oceans in lieu of traditional underwater wireline instruments. As a result, a broad range of applications exists ranging from oil industry to aquaculture and includes oceanographic data collection, disaster prevention, offshore exploration, assisted navigation, tactical surveillance, and pollution monitoring. However, the unique characteristics of underwater acoustic communication channels, such as high bit error rate, limited bandwidth, and variable delay, lead to a large number of packet drops, low throughput, and significant waste of energy because of packets retransmission in these applications. Hence, designing an efficient and reliable data communication protocol between sensor nodes and the sink is crucial for successful data transmission in underwater applications. Accordingly, this paper is intended to introduce a novel nature‐inspired evolutionary link quality‐aware queue‐based spectral clustering routing protocol for UASN‐based underwater applications. Because of its distributed nature, link quality‐aware queue‐based spectral clustering routing protocol successfully distributes network data traffic load evenly in harsh underwater environments and avoids hotspot problems that occur near the sink. In addition, because of its double check mechanism for signal to noise ratio and Euclidean distance, it adopts opportunistically and provides reliable dynamic cluster‐based routing architecture in the entire network. To sum up, the proposed approach successfully finds the best forwarding relay node for data transmission and avoids path loops and packet losses in both sparse and densely deployed UASNs. Our experimental results obtained in a set of extensive simulation studies verify that the proposed protocol performs better than the existing routing protocols in terms of data delivery ratio, overall network throughput, end‐to‐end delay, and energy efficiency.     

Routing design avoiding energy holes in underwater acoustic sensor networks

Interest in underwater acoustic sensor networks (UW‐ASNs) has rapidly increased with the desire to control the large portion of the world covered by oceans. Energy efficiency is one of the major concerns in UW‐ASNs due to the limited energy budget of the underwater sensor nodes. In this paper, we tackle the problem of energy holes in UW‐ASNs while taking into consideration the unique characteristics of the underwater channel. We prove that we can evenly distribute the transmission load among sensor nodes provided that sensors adjust their communication range when they send or forward the periodically generated data. In particular, we propose a balanced routing strategy along with the associated deployment pattern that meticulously determines the load weight for each possible next hop that leads to fair energy consumption among all underwater sensors. Consequently, the energy holes problem is overcome, and hence, the network lifetime is improved. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that addresses the energy hole problem in UW‐ASNs. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一种适用于异步无线传感器网络的机会路由机制

无线传感器网络通常使用低占空比的异步睡眠调度来降低节点能耗。由于发送节点在接收节点醒来后才能向其发送数据,这将引入额外的等待时延。在最近的一些任播路由机制中,发送节点动态地选择最先醒来的候选节点转发数据,以最小化等待时延。但是,由于从最先醒来的候选节点到基站的时延可能并不低,任播路由机制并不一定能最小化端到端总时延。为此,提出了一种适用于异步无线传感器网络的机会路由机制,将路由决策建模为强马尔科夫过程,并根据最优停止理论推导出该过程一种简化的停止规则。仿真结果表明,节点到基站的最大端到端时延仅为基于地理位置的机会路由的68.5%。     

MANCL: a multi‐anchor nodes collaborative localization algorithm for underwater acoustic sensor networks

Localization is an essential and major issue for underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs). Almost all the applications in UASNs are closely related to the locations of sensors. In this paper, we propose a multi‐anchor nodes collaborative localization (MANCL) algorithm, a three‐dimensional (3D) localization scheme using anchor nodes and upgrade anchor nodes within two hops for UASNs. The MANCL algorithm divides the whole localization process into four sub‐processes: unknown node localization process, iterative location estimation process, improved 3D Euclidean distance estimation process, and 3D DV‐hop distance estimation process based on two‐hop anchor nodes. In the third sub‐process, we propose a communication mechanism and a vote mechanism to determine the temporary coordinates of unknown nodes. In the fourth sub‐process, we use two‐hop anchor nodes to help localize unknown nodes. We also evaluate and compare the proposed algorithm with a large‐scale localization algorithm through simulations. Results show that the proposed MANCL algorithm can perform better with regard to localization ratio, average localization error, and energy consumption in UASNs. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An energy‐efficient localized topology control algorithm for wireless ad hoc and sensor networks

Topology control plays an important role in the design of wireless ad hoc and sensor networks and has demonstrated its high capability in constructing networks with desirable characteristics such as sparser connectivity, lower transmission power, and smaller node degree. However, the enforcement of a topology control algorithm in a network may degrade the energy‐draining balancing capability of the network and thus reduce the network operational lifetime. For this reason, it is important to take into account energy efficiency in the design of a topology control algorithm in order to achieve prolonged network lifetime. In this paper, we propose a localized energy‐efficient topology control algorithm for wireless ad hoc and sensor networks with power control capability in network nodes. To achieve prolonged network lifetime, we introduce a concept called energy criticality avoidance and propose an energy criticality avoidance strategy in topology control and energy‐efficient routing. Through theoretical analysis and simulation results, we prove that the proposed topology control algorithm can maintain the global network connectivity with low complexity and can significantly prolong the lifetime of a multi‐hop wireless network as compared with existing topology control algorithms with little additional protocol overhead. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Energy‐efficient void avoidance geographic routing protocol for underwater sensor networks

Underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) consist of a group of sensors that send the information to the sonobuoys at the surface level. Void area, however, is one of the challenges faced by UWSNs. When a sensor falls in a void area of communication, it causes problems such as high latency, power consumption, or packet loss. In this paper, an energy‐efficient void avoidance geographic routing protocol (EVAGR) has been proposed to handle the void area with low amount of energy consumption. In this protocol, a suitable set of forwarding nodes is selected using a weight function, and the data packets are forwarded to the nodes inside the set. The weight function includes the consumed energy and the depth of the candidate neighboring nodes, and candidate neighboring node selection is based on the packet advancement of the neighboring nodes toward the sonobuoys. Extensive simulation experiments were performed to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed protocol. Simulation results revealed that the proposed protocol can effectively achieve better performance in terms of energy consumption, packet drop, and routing overhead compared with the similar routing protocol.     

RPCP‐MAC: Receiver preambling with channel polling MAC protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks

To design a reliable and energy efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) is an active research area due to its variety of applications. There are many issues associated with underwater acoustic channels including long and variable propagation delay, attenuation, and limited bandwidth which pose significant challenges in the design of MAC protocol. The available sender‐initiated asynchronous preamble‐based MAC protocols for UWSNs are not reliable and energy‐efficient. This is due to the problems caused by transmission of preambles for longer duration and collision of preambles from hidden nodes in sender‐initiated preamble‐based MAC protocols. To resolve these issues, the paper proposed an asynchronous receiver‐initiated preamble‐based MAC protocol named Receiver Preambling with Channel Polling MAC (RPCP‐MAC) protocol for shallow underwater monitoring applications with high data rates. The protocol is proposed to resolve data packet collision and support reliability in an energy‐efficient way without using any transmission schedule. The proposed protocol is based on the following mechanisms. Firstly, receiver preambling mechanism is adopted to reduce idle listening. Secondly, channel polling mechanism is used to determine missing data frame during its sleeping period and to minimize the active time of node and reduces energy wastage. Finally, a back‐off mechanism is applied to resolve collision when preambles are received simultaneously. In addition, performance analysis through Markov chain together with its validation with simulation‐based studies is reported in the paper. Both the analytical and simulation results have demonstrated the reliability achievable with RPCP‐MAC while providing good energy efficiency.     

A survey on deployment techniques,localization algorithms,and research challenges for underwater acoustic sensor networks

In recent years, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have attracted the attention of both the research community and the industry, and this has eventually lead to the widespread use of WSNs in various applications. The significant advancements in WSNs and the advantages brought by WSNs have also enabled the rapid development of underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs). In UASNs, in addition to deployment, determining the locations of underwater sensor nodes after they have been deployed is important since it plays a critical role in many applications. Various localization techniques have been proposed for UASNs, and each one is suitable for specific scenarios and has unique challenges. In this paper, after presenting an overview of potential UASN applications, a survey of the deployment techniques and localization algorithms for UASNs has been presented based on their major advantages and disadvantages. Finally, research challenges and open research issues of UASNs have been discussed to provide an insight into future research opportunities.     

An energy‐efficient and balanced clustering approach for improving throughput of wireless sensor networks

Maximizing the lifespan of wireless sensor networks is currently drawing a lot of attention in the research community. In order to reduce energy consumption, sensor nodes that are far from the base station avoid sending data directly. As a result, several disjoint clusters are formed, and nodes within a cluster send their data through the cluster head to avoid long transmissions. However, several parameters related to transmission cost need to be considered when selecting a cluster head. While most of the existing research work considers energy and distance as the most stringent parameters to reduce energy consumption, these approaches fail to create a fair and balanced cluster. Consequently, unbalanced clusters are formed, resulting in the degradation of overall performance. In this research work, a cluster head selection algorithm is proposed that covers all parts of the sensing area in a balanced manner, saving a significant amount of energy. Furthermore, a capture effect–based intracluster communication mechanism is proposed that efficiently utilizes the time slot under various traffic conditions. A Näive Bayes classifier is used to adapt the window size dynamically according to the traffic pattern. Finally, a simulation model using OMNeT++ is developed to compare the proposed approach with the pioneer clustering approach, LEACH, and the contemporary LEACH‐MAC protocol in terms of performance. The results of the simulation indicate that the proposed approach improves the overall performance in terms of network lifetime, energy efficiency, and throughput.     

UEEDA: Uniform and energy‐efficient deployment algorithm for wireless sensor networks

Efficient and accurate sensor deployment is a critical requirement for the development of wireless sensor networks. Recently, distributed energy‐efficient self‐deployment algorithms, such as the intelligent deployment and clustering algorithm (IDCA) and the distributed self‐spreading algorithm (DSSA), have been proposed to offer almost uniform distribution for sensor deployment by employing a synergistic combination of cluster structuring and a peer‐to‐peer deployment scheme. However, both DSSA and IDCA suffer from unnecessary movements that have arisen from an inappropriate design in partial force. To improve the performance of self‐deployment algorithms, a uniform and energy‐efficient deployment algorithm (UEEDA) is proposed in this paper. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed UEEDA outperforms both DSSA and IDCA in terms of uniformity and algorithm convergence speed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一种用于水声传感网的MAC层协议

针对分簇的水声传感网,提出了一种基于时分多址（TDMA）的MAC层协议——Cluster-TDMA。该协议主要由规划阶段和传输阶段组成。规划阶段,首先由网关节点规划能造成簇间干扰的子节点的传输,其次由各簇头节点分别规划本簇内其他子节点的传输;传输阶段,子节点根据规划表周期性地向簇头节点发送数据,这些数据最终汇聚到网关节点。该协议简单有效地解决了引起簇间干扰子结点的传输规划问题。C++仿真实验表明,该协议具有良好的吞吐率和能量效率性能。     

Energy‐efficient and localized lossy data aggregation in asynchronous sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks, most data aggregation scheduling methods let all nodes aggregate data in every time instance. It is not energy efficient and practical because of link unreliability and data redundancy. This paper proposes a lossy data aggregation (LDA) scheme to reduce traffic and save energy. LDA selects partial child nodes to sample data at partial time slots and allows estimated aggregation at parent nodes or a root in a network. We firstly consider that all nodes sample data synchronously and find that the error between the real value of a physical parameter and that measured by LDA is bounded respectively with and without link unreliability. Detailed analysis is given on error bound when a confidence level is previously assigned to the root by a newly designed algorithm. Thus, each parent can determine the minimum number of child nodes needed to achieve its assigned confidence level. We then analyze a probability to bound the error with a confidence level previously assigned to the root when all nodes sample data asynchronously. An algorithm then is designed to implement our data aggregation under asynchronization. Finally, we implement our experiment on the basis of real test‐beds to prove that the scheme can save more energy than an existing algorithm for node selection, Distributive Online Greedy (DOG). Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.