A routing approach for inter-ship communications in wireless multi-hop networks

Existing communications from ships via satellites are expensive. We are motivated to extend the cheaper terrestrial communication coverage to sea via multi-hop networking. Maritime environment presents new challenges because sea surface moves randomly resulting in wave occlusion that breaks communication links. This paper models the maritime communication link after considering the wave occlusion and propagation impairments. Based on characteristics of the link, this paper proposes an aggregated-path routing approach that forms a route connecting virtual nodes, where each virtual node is a collection of nodes that are within the radio range of all nodes in its previous virtual node. Simulation and analytical results confirm that aggregated-path routing is significantly better than traditional single-path routing in terms of efficiency.