International Journal of Computer Networks and Applications

28 - 42

Authors: M. Usha, J. Sathiamoorthy, R. Ashween, Bhagavath Nishanth Ramakrishnan

Underwater communication is a newer addition to the ad hoc network arena as it opens several avenues of research that can be carried out under water. It has a varied range of applications which it carries out with the help of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV).Acoustic waves are used for sending out the network signals because they tend to have a lower attenuation under water. Underwater Acoustic Communication (UWAC) is used to send and receive signals underwater. Since UWAC is a relatively new field, there are still a lot of challenges to overcome. Unlike terrestrial communication, UWAC has to encounter factors like limited bandwidth, longer propagation delay, Doppler Effect, and channel availability problems. All of these factors have a direct effect on the throughput. Clustering the network can effectively help in managing the network efficiently. We have proposed an Energy Efficient Minimum Cost Cluster routing Protocol (EEMCCP), which routes packets with the help of clusters. The clustering of the network is efficiently achieved by using the Chaotic Algae Algorithm (CAA).After clustering the network, one node from each cluster acts as the Cluster Head (CH). The proposed protocol does not require any node position information and also ensures that, only a minimal number of nodes are involved in the end to end routing process. Some of the Cluster Heads are selected as gateway nodes based on their RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indictor) values of the Hello packets. Selected CHs are appointed as gateway nodes that are responsible for supplying the data to the AUV nodes that are nearer to them. When these gateway CH nodes exhaust their energy, back up nodes act as gateway nodes thus making the protocol a flexible one. In fact, the node location and position are not taken into consideration. The AUV nodes transfer the acquired information to a communication link which in turn transfers the data to a terrestrial destination. The EEMCCP focuses towards a cost effective solution for transmitting data. The performance of EEMCCP is compared with the existing protocols employed for underwater communication. From the analysis, we find that EEMCCP achieves a good throughput and PDR than the existing protocols.