Underwater Sensing and Processing Networks (USPN)

Underwater Sensor Networks are associated with a number of applications that require real-time delivery of large data. Examples include: still frame images or full-motion videos in seismic monitoring setups, oil pipe leak detection, and capturing sea activities. However, the transmission of large data relying only on acoustic communication is challenging due to the unique characteristics of aquatic channels, mainly, limited available bandwidth and long propagation delays. In this paper, we advocate a new system architecture called Underwater Sensing and Processing Network (USPN). USPN adopts efficient data processing algorithms to reduce data size and hence improve channel utilization and reduce end-to-end delay. We develop an analytical model for two network scenarios. The first scenario includes a single processing node communicates with a gateway while in the second scenario data are communicated via relay nodes. The objective of our model is to maximize the performance gain in terms of reducing the overall end-to-end delay and power consumption. In addition, we analyze the tradeoff between different objective parameters and the obtained gain. Our results show USPN can maximize the performance gain dramatically.