A Slotted-FAMA based MAC Protocol for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks with Data Train

Underwater wireless sensor networks are significantly different from terrestrial wireless sensor networks in that sound is mainly used as the communication medium. The limited bandwidth, long propagation delay and high bit error rate pose great challenges in Media Access Control (MAC) protocol design for underwater wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a Slotted-FAMA based MAC protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks with data train, called SFAMA-DT. It improves the channel utilization by forming a train of data packets of multiple transmission pairs during each round of simultaneously handshakes, which overcomes the multiple RTS attempts problem of Slotted-FAMA in high traffic environments and greatly reduces the relative proportion of time wasted due to the propagation delays of control packets. Our simulations show that the SFAMA-DT is able to achieve much higher throughput than the Slotted-FAMA protocol.