A data forwarding algorithm based on Markov thought in underwater wireless sensor networks

The underwater wireless sensor networks composed of sensor nodes are deployed underwater for monitoring and gathering submarine data. Since the underwater environment is usually unpredictable, making the nodes move or be damaged easily, such that there are several vital objectives in the data forwarding issue, such as the delivery success rate, the error rate, and the energy consumption. To this end, we propose a data forwarding algorithm based on Markov thought, which logically transforms the underwater three-dimensional deployment model into a two-dimensional model, and thus the nodes are considered to be hierarchically deployed. The data delivery is then achieved through a “bottom to top” forwarding mode, where the delivery success rate is improved and the energy consumption is reduced because the established paths are more stable, and the proposed algorithm is self-adaptive to the dynamic routing loads.