Comparative Analysis of Routing Protocols for Under Water Wireless Sensor Networks

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks are significantly different from terrestrial sensor networks due to peculiar characteristics of low bandwidth, high latency, limited energy, node float mobility and high error probability. These features bring many challenges to the network protocol design of UWSNs. Several routing protocols have been developed in recent years for these networks. One of the major difficulties in comparison and validation of the performance of these proposals is the lack of a common standard to model the acoustic propagation in the harsh underwater environment. In this paper we analyze the evolution of certain underwater routing protocols like VBF, DBR, H2-DAB, QELAR etc. in terms of their localization techniques, energy minimization characteristics and holding time calculations. The design of each protocol follows certain goals i.e. reduction of energy consumption, improvement of communication latency, achievement of robustness and scalability etc. This paper examines the main approaches and challenges in the design and implementation of underwater sensor networks. The detailed descriptions of the selected protocols contribute in understanding the direction of the current research on routing layer in UWSN.