State-of-the-Art in MAC Protocols for Underwater Acoustics Sensor Networks

Many potential applications such as ocean sampling network, environment monitoring, undersea exploration, disaster prevention, assisted navigation, and mine reconnaissance can be provided by deploying the Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks. Because of the peculiarities of acoustic communication in underwater, the MAC protocol which play a role of managing and controlling the channels, must overcome the required of energy consumption, propagation delay and time synchronize as well as other factors. In this paper, we summarize and classify some current proposed MAC protocols as well as make a comparison table in order to bring out the current development of a very interesting research area. Beside, we briefly introduce our suggestion of MAC mechanisms for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UWASNs) named Gain-time and Guard-time TDMA mechanism and UWANAV mechanism.