Aqua-Net: An Underwater Sensor Network Architecture — Design and Implementation

Underwater sensor network (UWSN) has emerged as a powerful technique for aquatic applications. Different from ground based networks, UWSN features long propagation delay, low bandwidth and high error rate. Limited power capacity and node mobility also make it difficult to apply existing protocols or algorithm designed for terrestrial networks to UWSN. It requires new research at every layer of the protocol stack. There is also a need to provide a general architecture for underwater sensor network. This paper proposes AQUA-NET, an architecture for underwater sensor network. Aqua-Net follows a layered structure and have much potential to support various optimizations. It serves as a groundwork for future advances for architectural and protocol designs.