Layered Multi-path Power Control in Underwater Sensor Networks

The provisioning of energy-efficient, reliable and low-delay communication in Underwater Sensor Networks (USNs) is a challenging research issue due to the use of acoustic channels. However, the existing mechanisms for enhancement of energy utilization and Quality-of-Service (QoS) in USNs have not considered noise attenuation in deep water which can deteriorate energy efficiency and QoS seriously. To fill this gap, this paper presents a novel scheme, namely Layered Multi-path Power Control (LMPC), to reduce the energy consumption as well as enhance reliable and robust communications in USNs. To this end, we first formalize an optimization problem to manage transmission power and control data rate across the whole network. The objective is to minimize energy consumption and simultaneously ensure other performance in terms of required packet error rate and maximum power. We then solve the key problems including establishment of the Energy-Efficient Tree (EET) and energy distribution in the tree and further provide a feasible solution for the optimization problem. Finally, the extensive simulation experiments are conducted to evaluate the network performance under different design alternatives. The simulation results show that the developed scheme outperforms the existing mechanism significantly.