On TDMA based hybrid channel MAC protocol for Underwater Sensor Networks

Abstract

Underwater sensor networks play a great role in research areas by gathering knowledge about the inaccessible parts of the underwater. The sensory nodes in the network aid us by performing real time data acquisition which is needed to forecast different natural calamities. However communication in underwater with high success rate is quiet challenging because of the nature of the environment. Due to the high attenuation of EM wave in water, large amount of power is needed to communicate with EM waves. Therefore acoustic waves are mainly used for underwater communication. However, the combination of the EM and acoustic waves can be a better choice for that purpose. Here we have proposed a combination of both the EM and acoustic waves for our MAC protocol. The model uses the EM in the control channel whereas the acoustic wave carries the data. The control channel uses TDMA to avoid any control packet collision and thus making sure that no data packet collision will occur. To our best knowledge this type of proposal with EM wave has not yet been stated anywhere else. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves higher throughput than other MAC schemes examined in this paper.