TY - GEN
T1 - An adaptive TDMA-based MAC protocol for underwater acoustic sensor networks
AU - Gorma, Wael
AU - Mitchell, Paul D.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 ACM.
PY - 2019/10/23
Y1 - 2019/10/23
N2 - Acoustic propagation through water suffers from attenuation that increases with both signal frequency and transmission range, with time-varying long propagation delays. The power spectral density of underwater ambient noise also changes with frequency. As a result, the usable channel bandwidth is heavily constrained and Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol design for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs) is challenging. Striking a balance between channel utilisation and network end-to-end delay is particularly difficult. The Combined Free/Demand Assignment Multiple Access (CFDAMA) protocol has been shown to effectively minimise end-to-end delay and maximise channel utilisation, but existing approaches are reliant on synchronisation which is hard to achieve underwater. This paper introduces a novel robust MAC protocol, based on CFDAMA, exclusively designed for UASNs and called CFDAMA-NoClock. It is capable of providing an adaptive MAC solution without the need for synchronisation amongst independent node clocks. The protocol demonstrates a high level of practicality and simplicity. Both analytical models and comprehensive event-driven simulation of several underwater scenarios show that CFDAMA-NoClock can offer excellent delay/utilisation performance under two distinct traffic types and with various network parameters selected based on practical UASN technologies.
AB - Acoustic propagation through water suffers from attenuation that increases with both signal frequency and transmission range, with time-varying long propagation delays. The power spectral density of underwater ambient noise also changes with frequency. As a result, the usable channel bandwidth is heavily constrained and Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol design for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs) is challenging. Striking a balance between channel utilisation and network end-to-end delay is particularly difficult. The Combined Free/Demand Assignment Multiple Access (CFDAMA) protocol has been shown to effectively minimise end-to-end delay and maximise channel utilisation, but existing approaches are reliant on synchronisation which is hard to achieve underwater. This paper introduces a novel robust MAC protocol, based on CFDAMA, exclusively designed for UASNs and called CFDAMA-NoClock. It is capable of providing an adaptive MAC solution without the need for synchronisation amongst independent node clocks. The protocol demonstrates a high level of practicality and simplicity. Both analytical models and comprehensive event-driven simulation of several underwater scenarios show that CFDAMA-NoClock can offer excellent delay/utilisation performance under two distinct traffic types and with various network parameters selected based on practical UASN technologies.
KW - CFDAMA
KW - Medium Access Control
KW - TDMA
KW - Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85081067871&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3366486.3366549
DO - 10.1145/3366486.3366549
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85081067871
T3 - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
BT - Proceedings of the International Conference on Underwater Networks and Systems, WUWNET 2019
PB - ACM Press
T2 - 2019 International Conference on Underwater Networks and Systems, WUWNET 2019
Y2 - 23 October 2019 through 25 October 2019
ER -