A MAC protocol to support monitoring of underwater spaces

Underwater sensor networks are becoming an important field of research, because of their everyday increasing application scope. Examples of their application areas are environmental and pollution monitoring (mainly oil spills), oceanographic data collection, support for submarine geolocalization, oc...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Santos, Rodrigo, Orozco, Javier, Ochoa, Sergio, Meseguer Pallarès, Roc|||0000-0002-9414-646X, Eggly, Gabriel, Pistonesi, Marcelo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/100292
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/100292
https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s16070984
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Underwater acoustic telemetry
underwater sensor networks
underwater monitoring
MAC protocol
acoustic transmission
Telemetria
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria electrònica::Instrumentació i mesura::Sensors i actuadors
Descripción
Sumario:Underwater sensor networks are becoming an important field of research, because of their everyday increasing application scope. Examples of their application areas are environmental and pollution monitoring (mainly oil spills), oceanographic data collection, support for submarine geolocalization, ocean sampling and early tsunamis alert. The challenge of performing underwater communications is well known, provided that radio signals are useless in this medium, and a wired solution is too expensive. Therefore, the sensors in these networks transmit their information using acoustic signals that propagate well under water. This data transmission type not only brings an opportunity, but also several challenges to the implementation of these networks, e.g., in terms of energy consumption, data transmission and signal interference. In order to help advance the knowledge in the design and implementation of these networks for monitoring underwater spaces, this paper proposes a MAC protocol for acoustic communications between the nodes, based on a self-organized time division multiple access mechanism. The proposal was evaluated using simulations of a real monitoring scenario, and the obtained results are highly encouraging.