Reliability and delay in AUV navigation using EM wave based underwater sensor network with shadow fading

Due to the relatively longer transmission range of acoustic wave compared to that of electromagnetic (EM) wave, practical navigation systems of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are almost certainly of acoustic type. However, slower propagation speeds of acoustic waves introduce various performance bottlenecks including substantial operational delay. On the other hand, in spite of higher attenuation of EM signal in underwater environment, it can be useful for short-range networks requiring faster navigation. In light of this, this paper proposes and investigates an EM wave based AUV navigation system using underwater sensor network (UWSN) in shadow fading environment. Extensive simulations are carried out for evaluating the reliability and delay performance of the proposed system. AUV navigation performance under various network settings is thoroughly investigated and critically analyzed. Performance of the proposed EM based system is also compared to that of acoustic.