Author :
Casari, Paolo ; Marella, Stefano ; Zorzi, Michele
Abstract :
In this paper, we carry out an extensive performance evaluation of multiple access schemes applied to clustered UnderWater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UWASN). Networking underwater sensors poses new and interesting issues with respect to radio environments, as they require to account for unusual channel behaviors, such as large propagation delays, higher energy consumption during transmission as compared to reception, distance-varying available acoustic bandwidth, strong fading phenomena, and so on. In particular, managing channel access in converge-casting scenarios is difficult, as many nodes have to share the same medium under the previously cited contraints, in order to report to the same data collecting station. To this aim, we organize the network in clusters and give details on which access scheme (both for the clusterheads and for the children nodes) gives better results under a number of performance metrics, highlighting the different protocol behaviors in the scenarios of interest and translating the relevant tradeoffs into design criteria.
Keywords :
access protocols; oceanographic techniques; underwater acoustic telemetry; wireless sensor networks; acoustic bandwidth; acoustic telemetry; channel access management; clustered underwater acoustic sensor networks; converge-casting scenario; data collection; energy consumption; fading phenomena; multiple access techniques; performance metrics; propagation delay; protocol behavior; unusual channel behavior; Acoustic propagation; Acoustic sensors; Humans; Optical transmitters; Radio transmitters; Sensor phenomena and characterization; Telemetry; Underwater acoustics; Underwater communication; Weather forecasting; Access; Acoustic telemetry and communication (2.8); Information management (5.5); custody; retrieval of data (5.1);