Research on Routing Protocol for Shallow Underwater Acoustic Ad Hoc Network

As UWA technology develops, ad hoc applied in UWA shows ascending predominance. The physical properties of acoustic channels essentially differ from those of conventional wireless communication channels. Its unknown and complicated channel condition motives research and redesign of existed protocols of wireless networks. This paper based on the investigation of the differences between UWA ad hoc network and normal wireless ad hoc network, and the acquaintance with the functions and characteristics of all kinds of ad hoc routing protocols with focusing on the network layer of ad hoc OSI model. Finally we chose the most suitable ad hoc routing protocol for shallow UWA environment - DSR, then used OPNET to design the model and simulated it in this environment. DSR shows great performance in terms of reliability, routing overhead, and path optimality because of its cache mechanism and source routing mechanism, yet it needs to be improved in throughput and long propagation delays.