Clustered underwater ad-hoc networks in the presence of interference

The paper considers the performance of clustered underwater acoustic ad-hoc networks in the presence of interference. We assume a uniform distribution of nodes over a finite area. The cluster-to-cluster channel is modeled as a Ricean fading channel. We adopt a communication theoretic approach and study the interdependence of the sustainable number of cluster-to-cluster hops through the network, end-to-end frame error probability, power and bandwidth allocation. We find that the network´s ability to provide full connectivity may be limited from below by coverage and from above by interference. The network may be coverage-limited when the number of nodes in the network is small, and interference-limited when the number of nodes is high. Numerical examples are presented that illustrate the results of the analysis.