Data Collection Strategy for Magnetic Induction Based Monitoring in Underwater Sensor Networks

Underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) based on magnetic induction (MI) have been recently proposed as a promising candidate for underwater networking due to its benefits, such as small transmission delay, low vulnerability to environment changes, multipath fading negligibility, and high bandwidth. Most of the UWSN applications are location dependent and, thus, localization plays an important functionality for obtaining sensor positions. In this paper, we first study an MI-based monitoring network in shallow sea, then focus on how to design an optimal node deployment strategy and a clustering algorithm to prolong network lifetime for a 3D-UWSN by reducing the network energy consumption. Using the Voronoi diagram, we propose a high-energy node priority clustering algorithm, in which a cluster head would be selected according to the remaining energy of sensor nodes and the geometry distance among them. Moreover, in order to improve the efficiency of data collection, we use the ant colony optimization to find the shortest path for autonomous underwater vehicle. The simulation results show that the proposed approach outperforms other conventional protocols in some certain scenarios.