A Multimedia Cross-Layer Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Underwater multimedia acoustic sensor networks will enable new underwater applications such as multimedia coastal and tactical surveillance, undersea explorations, picture and video acquisition and classification, and disaster prevention. Because of the different application requirements, there is a need to provide differentiated-service support to delay-sensitive and delay-tolerant data traffic as well as to loss-sensitive and loss-tolerant traffic. While research on underwater communication protocol design so far has followed the traditional layered approach originally developed for wired networks, improved performance can be obtained with a cross-layer design. Hence, the objective of this work is twofold: 1) study the interactions of key underwater communication functionalities such as modulation, forward error correction, medium access control, and routing; and 2) develop a distributed cross-layer communication solution that allows multiple devices to efficiently and fairly share the bandwidth-limited high-delay underwater acoustic medium.