Deployment Protocol for Underwater Wireless Sensors Network based on Virtual Force

Recently, Underwater Sensor Networks (UWSNs) have attracted researchers’ attention due to the challenges and the peculiar characteristics of the underwater environment. The initial random deployment of UWSN where sensors are scattered over the area via planes or ships is inefficient, and it doesn’t achieve full coverage nor maintain network connectivity. Moreover, energy efficiency in underwater networks is a crucial issue since nodes utilize battery power as a source of energy and it is difficult and sometimes impossible to change or replenish these batteries. Our contribution in this research is to improve the performance of UWSNs by designing UW-DVFA, an underwater 3-D self-distributed deployment algorithm based on virtual forces. The main target for this work is to stretch the randomly deployed network in the 3-D area in a way that guarantees full area coverage and network connectivity. Keywords—Deployment algorithm; underwater wireless sensor network; virtual force; coverage; connectivity