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A Communication Framework for Networked Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

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Book cover The Art of Wireless Sensor Networks

Part of the book series: Signals and Communication Technology ((SCT))

Abstract

Underwater acoustic communications consume a significant amount of energy due to the high transmission power (10–50 \(\mathrm {W}\)) and long data packet transmission duration (0.1–1 \(\mathrm {s}\)). Mobile Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) can conserve energy by waiting for the ‘best’ network topology configuration, e.g., a favorable alignment, before starting to communicate. Due to the frequency-selective underwater acoustic ambient noise and high medium power absorption—which increases exponentially with distance—a shorter distance between AUVs translates into a lower transmission loss and a higher available bandwidth. By leveraging the predictability of AUV trajectories, a novel solution is proposed that optimizes communications by delaying packet transmissions in order to wait for a favorable network topology (thus trading end-to-end delay for energy and/or throughput). In addition, the proposed solution exploits the frequency-dependent radiation pattern of underwater acoustic transducers to reduce communication energy consumption. Our solution is implemented and evaluated through emulations, showing improved performance over some well-known geographic routing solutions and delay-tolerant networking solutions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Due to the peculiar ‘V’ shape of the underwater acoustic ambient noise and the high medium power absorption exponentially increasing with distance [35], a shorter distance between AUVs translates into a lower transmission loss and a higher available bandwidth.

  2. 2.

    “Quo vadis?” is a Latin phrase meaning “Where are you going?”.

  3. 3.

    Note that in underwater acoustics, power (or source level) is usually expressed using decibel (dB) scale, relative to the reference pressure level in underwater acoustics \(1\,\mu Pa\), i.e., the power induced by 1 \(\mu Pa\) pressure. The conversion expression for the source level \(SL\) re \(\mu Pa\) at the distance of \(1~{\mathrm {m}}\) of a compact source of \(P\) watts is \(SL=170.77+10\log _{10} P\).

  4. 4.

    Each packet sent by WHOI Micro-Modem consists of a number of frames where the maximum number depends on \(\xi \).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

    Baozhi Chen & Dario Pompili

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  1. Baozhi Chen
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  2. Dario Pompili
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Correspondence to Baozhi Chen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, Michigan, USA

    Habib M. Ammari

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Chen, B., Pompili, D. (2014). A Communication Framework for Networked Autonomous Underwater Vehicles. In: Ammari, H. (eds) The Art of Wireless Sensor Networks. Signals and Communication Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40066-7_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40066-7_13

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