Fountain code based Adaptive multi-hop Reliable data transfer for underwater acoustic networks

In this paper, we investigate multi-hop reliable data transfer for underwater acoustic networks. We propose a new protocol, called FOuntain Code based Adaptive multi-hop Reliable data transfer (FOCAR). FOCAR is essentially a hybrid ARQ scheme which integrates Fountain codes with hop-by-hop retransmission-upon-failure. It considers the half duplex nature of the underwater acoustic modems and adapts the block size of each hop to optimize the end-to-end delay for the multi-hop network scenario. Extensive simulation results show that FOCAR can achieve high reliability with low end-to-end delay and high energy efficiency.