Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Jan 6;14(1):795-833.
doi: 10.3390/s140100795.

Underwater acoustic wireless sensor networks: advances and future trends in physical, MAC and routing layers

Affiliations

Underwater acoustic wireless sensor networks: advances and future trends in physical, MAC and routing layers

Salvador Climent et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

This survey aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current research on underwater wireless sensor networks, focusing on the lower layers of the communication stack, and envisions future trends and challenges. It analyzes the current state-of-the-art on the physical, medium access control and routing layers. It summarizes their security threads and surveys the currently proposed studies. Current envisioned niches for further advances in underwater networks research range from efficient, low-power algorithms and modulations to intelligent, energy-aware routing and medium access control protocols.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Narrow-band signal-to-noise ratio (SNR; 1/(AN)) as a function of frequency for varying transmission distance. Environmental factors used: practical spreading, k = 1.5; wind speed, w = 3 m/s; and moderate shipping activity, s = 0.5.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Temperature, salinity data and their impact on the sound speed profile. Data retrieved from the Papa station placed in the Pacific ocean (39°N, 146°W) in August, 1959.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Acoustic Ray Tracing for Sound Speed Profiles with Positive and Negative Gradients. (a) Positive Gradient Sound Speed Profile. (b) Negative Gradient Sound Speed Profile.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Contention-free communication can be accomplished by assigning time, frequency or unique codes.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Classification of medium access control (MAC) protocols.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Classification of routing protocols.

References

    1. Headrick R., Freitag L. Growth of underwater communication technology in the U.S. Navy. IEEE Commun. Mag. 2009;47:80–82.
    1. Benson B. Ph.D. Thesis. University of California; San Diego, CA, USA: 2010. Design of a Low-cost Underwater Acoustic Modem for Short-Range Sensor Networking Appications.
    1. Heidemann J., Stojanovic M., Zorzi M. Underwater sensor networks: Applications, advances and challenges. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A. 2012;370:158–175. - PubMed
    1. Akyildiz I.F., Pompili D., Melodia T. Underwater acoustic sensor networks: Research challenges. Ad. Hoc. Netw. 2005;3:257–279.
    1. Stojanovic M., Preisig J. Underwater acoustic communication channels: Propagation models and statistical characterization. IEEE Commun. Mag. 2009;47:84–89.

Publication types