Towards Robust Routing in Three-Dimensional Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

The areas of three-dimensional (3D) underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) have attracted significant attention recently due to their applications in detecting and observing phenomena that cannot be adequately observed by means of two-dimensional UWSNs. However, designing routing protocols for UWSNs is a challenging task because path breakage occurs frequently due to uncertain node and link failures. In this paper, we present a Robust Routing Protocol (RRP) that aims to achieve robustness under harsh underwater conditions of 3D UWSNs. In RRP, each sensor has a data structure called backup bin, which allows to construct main backup links and auxiliary backup links for repairing failed links and ensuring normal data delivery. Moreover, sensor nodes can also enlarge their transmission range to build new links when the main routing path is not reachable through backup links. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol can reduce node and link failures' impact on metrics of packet delivery ratio, network throughput, energy consumption, and average end-to-end delay. © 2013 Ming Xu et al.