A Survey on Routing Techniques in Underwater Sensor Networks

Underwater wireless sensor networks consist of a certain number of sensors and vehicles that interact to collect data and perform collaborative tasks. The sensor network consists of static and mobile underwater sensor nodes. The nodes communicate point-to-point using a novel high-speed optical communication system integrated into the TinyOS stack or other small operating system, and they broadcast using an acoustic protocol integrated in the OS stack. The sensor nodes have a variety of sensing capabilities, including cameras, water temperature, and pressure. The mobile nodes can locate and hover above the static nodes for data mulling, and they can perform network maintenance functions such as deployment of sensor nodes, relocation of sensor nodes, and recovery from failures. In this paper, we describe the networking and hardware architecture of underwater sensor network. We then describe the hardware architecture of underwater sensor node, types of nodes and finally we discuss the applications of underwater sensor network.