Exploring random access and handshaking techniques in underwater wireless acoustic networks

Abstract

In this article, we study the medium access control (MAC) problem in underwater wireless acoustic networks. We explore the random access and handshaking (i.e., RTS/CTS) techniques in both single-channel and multi-channel network scenarios. We model and analyze these two approaches, and conduct extensive simulations to study their performance in various network conditions. Based on our results, we observe that the performance of both approaches are affected by many factors such as data rate, propagation delay and packet size. Our results show that the RTS/CTS approach is more suitable for dense networks with high date rate, whereas the random access approach is preferred in sparse networks with low data rate. Our results also demonstrate that multi-channel techniques can potentially help us combat the long delay feature of underwater acoustic channels. However, uncoordinated random channel access cannot fully exploit the advantages of the multi-channel network settings and it performs even worse than the single-channel random access protocol. Only with careful design and coordination such as multi-channel access with RTS/CTS handshaking process, can multi-channel MAC protocols greatly improve the system performance. We believe that this study will provide useful guidelines for efficient MAC design in underwater wireless acoustic networks.

A Multichannel MAC Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

“…It has been verified in [17] that the network throughput and energy consumption of the multi-channel protocol perform better than those of the singlechannel protocol. RM-MACA adopts the key point of multichannel protocol and divides the whole bandwidth into 2 parts: a Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page.…”

Variable observation window length blind equalization detector for underwater acoustic communication

“…Underwater acoustic channel (UAC) is one of the most complex wireless channels. In such channels, intersymbol interference (ISI) is caused by the overlap of symbols, due to the multipath signal propagation [1][2][3]. Severe ISI is one of the important factors degrading the system performance of underwater acoustic communication.…”

The Control Packet Collision Avoidance Algorithm for the Underwater Multichannel MAC Protocols via Time-Frequency Masking

“…Nodes reserve channel resources through handshaking exchange message before initiating data communication [11,12]. The multichannel MAC protocols transmit handshaking exchange message via independent channels, initiates information transmission among multinode pairs concurrently, utilizes network bandwidth and reduces the consumption when network load is heavy [13][14][15], and attracts attention of the researchers recently. The prospective of the multichannel MAC protocols is solving new problems which are faced with multichannel protocols, especially the collision problem in control channel.…”