Cellular Clustering-Based Interference-Aware Data Transmission Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Recently, the development of three-dimensional interference-aware data transmission methods has attracted the attention of scholars due to the increased interest in exploiting and studying the underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs). In this paper, an interference aware data transmission protocol based on cellular clustering architecture is proposed. The protocol involves two steps. The first one is an inter-cell time division multiple access (TDMA) scheduling, which reduces acoustic interference by restricting simultaneous data transmission via adjacent routing paths; and the second one is an intra-cell hierarchical routing, which targets efficient data collection in the submarine and reliable data transmission from the seabed to the surface. Moreover, a novel Ekman spiral-based low-cost location prediction method and a void hole recovery scheme are adopted in each step to support the practicability of proposed protocol. Theoretical analysis and simulations indicate that the proposed protocol has advantages related to the quality of service (QoS) of UASNs because the signal interference is significantly mitigated.