DRP: An energy-efficient routing protocol for underwater sensor networks

The features of transmissions in underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) include lower transmission rate, longer delay time, and higher power consumption when compared with terrestrial radio transmissions. The negative effects of transmission collisions deteriorate in such environments. Existing UWSN routing protocols do not consider the transmission collision probability differences resulting from different transmission distances. In this paper, we show that collision probability plays an important role in route selection and propose an energy-efficient routing protocol (DRP) which considers the distance-varied collision probability as well as each node’s residual energy. Considering these two issues, DRP can find a path with high successful transmission rate and high residual energy. In fact, DRP can find the path producing the longest network lifetime, which we have confirmed through theoretical analysis. To the best of our knowledge, DRP is the first UWSN routing protocol that uses transmission collision probability as a factor in route selection. Simulation results verify that DRP extends network lifetime, increases network throughput, and reduces end-to-end delay when compared with solutions without considering distancevaried collision probability or residual energy. Index Terms Underwater Sensor Networks, Transmission Collisions, Network Lifetime, Energy-efficient Routing protocol