Surface-Level Gateway Deployment for Underwater Sensor Networks

The performance of underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) is greatly limited by the low bandwidth and high propagation delay of acoustic communications. Deploying multiple surface-level radio-capable gateways can enhance UWSN performance from many aspects. In this paper, we mainly focus on the surface gateway deployment, which is modelled as an optimization problem. Integer Linear Programming (ILP) is used for solving variations of the deployment optimization problem. The tradeoff between the number of surface gateways and the expected delay and energy consumption is analyzed. We conduct simulations to evaluate the benefits of surface gateway optimization and investigate the effect of acoustic channel capacity and the underwater sensor node deployment pattern. Our results show the significant advantages of surface gateway optimization. The results also provide useful guidelines for real network deployment.