Reliable geocasting for random-access underwater acoustic sensor networks

Reliable data delivery for underwater acoustic sensor networks is a major concern in applications such as surveillance, data collection, navigation, and ocean monitoring. Geocasting is a crucial communication primitive needed to support these applications, which consists in transmitting one or multiple consecutive data packets - all carrying an atomic message - to nodes located in a certain geographic region. In this article, two versions of a distributed, reliable, and efficient underwater geocasting solution (based on different degrees of neighbor information) are proposed for underwater networks whose acoustic modems use random-access Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols. By jointly considering the position uncertainty of nodes as well as the MAC and routing functionalities, packet transmissions are prioritized and scheduled so to maximize link reliability while limiting the end-to-end geocasting delay. Moreover, a simple yet effective timer-based mechanism is designed to limit the number of transmissions by selecting only a subset of neighbors for packet forwarding. Performance is evaluated and compared via thorough simulations against existing geocasting solutions tuned for the underwater environment that were originally designed for terrestrial wireless networks.

[1]  Jie Lian,et al.  Virtual Surrounding Face Geocasting in Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks , 2009, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

[2]  M. S. Corson,et al.  A highly adaptive distributed routing algorithm for mobile wireless networks , 1997, Proceedings of INFOCOM '97.

[3]  Ivan Stojmenovic,et al.  Voronoi diagram and convex hull based geocasting and routing in wireless networks , 2006, Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput..

[4]  Ivan Stojmenovic,et al.  Routing with Guaranteed Delivery in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks , 1999, DIALM '99.

[5]  Baozhi Chen,et al.  Uncertainty-aware localization solution for under-ice autonomous underwater vehicles , 2012, 2012 9th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON).

[6]  Nitin H. Vaidya,et al.  Geocasting in mobile ad hoc networks: location-based multicast algorithms , 1999, Proceedings WMCSA'99. Second IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications.

[7]  D. Pompili,et al.  A QoS-Aware Underwater Optimization Framework for Inter-Vehicle Communication using Acoustic Directional Transducers , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[8]  Baozhi Chen,et al.  Reliable geocasting solution for underwater acoustic sensor networks , 2011, 2011 - MILCOM 2011 Military Communications Conference.

[9]  Chih-Yung Chang,et al.  Obstacle-Free Geocasting Protocols for Single/Multi-Destination Short Message Services in Ad Hoc Networks , 2003, Wirel. Networks.

[10]  Dario Pompili,et al.  Underwater acoustic sensor networks: research challenges , 2005, Ad Hoc Networks.

[11]  Baozhi Chen,et al.  QUO VADIS: QoS-aware underwater optimization framework for inter-vehicle communication using acoustic directional transducers , 2011, 2011 8th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks.

[12]  Nitin H. Vaidya,et al.  GeoTORA: a protocol for geocasting in mobile ad hoc networks , 2000, Proceedings 2000 International Conference on Network Protocols.

[13]  Baozhi Chen,et al.  Trajectory-Aware Communication Solution for Underwater Gliders Using WHOI Micro-Modems , 2010, 2010 7th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON).

[14]  W. Burdic.  Underwater Acoustic System Analysis , 1984 .

[15]  P.M. Ruiz,et al.  Bandwidth-Efficient Geographic Multicast Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks , 2007, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[16]  Yunhao Liu,et al.  Virtual Surrounding Face Geocasting with Guaranteed Message Delivery for Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks , 2006, Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols.