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Challenges for efficient communication in underwater acoustic sensor networks

Article  in  ACM SIGBED Review · July 2004

DOI: 10.1145/1121776.1121779

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 Challenges for Efficient Communication in
Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks
Ian F. Akyildiz, Dario Pompili, Tommaso Melodia
Broadband & Wireless Networking Laboratory
School of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
Tel: (404) 894-5141 Fax: (404) 894-7883
e-mail:{ian, dario, tommaso}@ece.gatech.edu

Abstract— Ocean bottom sensor nodes can be used for oceano- • Ocean Sampling Networks. Networks of sensors and
graphic data collection, pollution monitoring, offshore explo- AUVs, such as the Odyssey-class AUVs, can perform
ration and tactical surveillance applications. Moreover, Un- synoptic, cooperative adaptive sampling of the 3D coastal
manned or Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (UUVs, AUVs),
equipped with sensors, will find application in exploration of ocean environment.
natural undersea resources and gathering of scientific data in • Pollution Monitoring and other environmental monitor-
collaborative monitoring missions. Underwater acoustic network- ing (chemical, biological, etc.).
ing is the enabling technology for these applications. Underwater • Distributed Tactical Surveillance. AUVs and fixed un-
Networks consist of a variable number of sensors and vehicles derwater sensors can collaboratively monitor areas for
that are deployed to perform collaborative monitoring tasks over
a given area. surveillance, reconnaissance, targeting and intrusion de-
In this paper, several fundamental key aspects of underwater tection systems.
acoustic communications are investigated. Different architectures Acoustic communications are the typical physical layer
for two-dimensional and three-dimensional underwater sensor
networks are discussed, and the underwater channel is char- technology in underwater networks. In fact, radio waves
acterized. The main challenges for the development of efficient propagate at long distances through conductive sea water only
networking solutions posed by the underwater environment are at extra low frequencies (30 − 300 Hz), which require large
detailed at all layers of the protocol stack. Furthermore, open antennae and high transmission power. Optical waves do not
research issues are discussed and possible solution approaches suffer from such high attenuation but are affected by scattering.
are outlined.
Thus, links in underwater networks are based on acoustic
wireless communications [1].
I. I NTRODUCTION
The traditional approach for ocean-bottom or ocean column
Ocean bottom sensor nodes are deemed to enable applica- monitoring is to deploy underwater sensors that record data
tions for oceanographic data collection, pollution monitoring, during the monitoring mission, and then recover the instru-
offshore exploration and tactical surveillance applications. ments [2]. This approach has the following disadvantages:
Multiple Unmanned or Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
(UUVs, AUVs), equipped with underwater sensors, will also • Real time monitoring is not possible. This is critical
find application in exploration of natural undersea resources especially in surveillance or in environmental monitoring
and gathering of scientific data in collaborative monitoring applications such as seismic monitoring. The recorded
missions. To make these applications viable, there is a need data cannot be accessed until the instruments are re-
to enable underwater communications among underwater de- covered, which may happen several months after the
vices. Underwater sensor nodes and vehicles must possess self- beginning of the monitoring mission.
configuration capabilities, i.e., they must be able to coordinate • No interaction is possible between onshore control sys-
their operation by exchanging configuration, location and tems and the monitoring instruments. This impedes any
movement information, and to relay monitored data to an adaptive tuning of the instruments, nor is it possible to
onshore station. reconfigure the system after particular events occur.
Wireless Underwater Acoustic Networking is the enabling • If failures or misconfigurations occur, it may not be
technology for these applications. UnderWater Acoustic Sen- possible to detect them before the instruments are re-
sor Networks (UW-ASN) consist of a variable number of covered. This can easily lead to the complete failure of
sensors and vehicles that are deployed to perform collaborative a monitoring mission.
monitoring tasks over a given area. To achieve this objective, • The amount of data that can be recorded during the
sensors and vehicles self-organize in an autonomous network monitoring mission by every sensor is limited by the
which can adapt to the characteristics of the ocean environ- capacity of the onboard storage devices (memories, hard
ment. disks, etc).
The above described features enable a broad range of Therefore, there is a need to deploy underwater networks
applications for underwater acoustic sensor networks: that will enable real time monitoring of selected ocean areas,
remote configuration and interaction with onshore human
operators. This can be obtained by connecting underwater
instruments by means of wireless links based on acoustic
communication.
Many researchers are currently engaged in developing net-
working solutions for terrestrial wireless ad hoc and sensor
networks. Although there exist many recently developed net-
work protocols for wireless sensor networks, the unique char-
acteristics of the underwater acoustic communication channel,
such as limited bandwidth capacity and variable delays, require
for very efficient and reliable new data communication proto-
cols. The main differences between terrestrial and underwater
sensor networks can be itemized as follows:
• Cost. Underwater sensors are more expensive devices
than terrestrial sensors.
• Deployment. The deployment is deemed to be more
sparse in underwater networks.
• Spatial Correlation. While the readings from terrestrial Fig. 1. Architecture for 2D Underwater Sensor Networks.
sensors are often correlated, this is more unlikely to
happen in underwater networks due to the higher distance
among sensors. sensor networks. The underwater sensor network topology is
• Power. Higher power is needed in underwater commu- an open research issue in itself that needs further analytical
nications due to higher distances and to more complex and simulative investigation from the research community.
signal processing at the receivers. In the remainder of this section, we discuss the following
Major challenges in the design of Underwater Acoustic Net- architectures:
works are: • Static two-dimensional UW-ASNs for ocean bottom
• Battery power is limited and usually batteries can not be monitoring. These are constituted by sensor nodes that
recharged, also because solar energy cannot be exploited; are anchored to the bottom of the ocean. Typical appli-
• The available bandwidth is severely limited [3]; cations may be environmental monitoring, or monitoring
• Channel characteristics, including long and variable prop- of underwater plates in tectonics [4].
agation delays, multi-path and fading problems; • Static three-dimensional UW-ASNs for ocean column
• High bit error rates; monitoring. These include networks of sensors whose
• Underwater sensors are prone to failures because of depth can be controlled by means of techniques discussed
fouling, corrosion, etc. in Section II-B, and may be used for surveillance appli-
In this survey, we discuss several fundamental key aspects cations or monitoring of ocean phenomena (ocean bio-
of underwater acoustic communications. We discuss the com- geo-chemical processes, water streams, pollution, etc).
munication architecture of underwater sensor networks as well
as the factors that influence underwater network design. The
A. Two-dimensional Underwater Sensor Networks
ultimate objective of this paper is to encourage research efforts
to lay down fundamental basis for the development of new A reference architecture for two-dimensional underwater
advanced communication techniques for efficient underwater networks is shown in Fig. 1. A group of sensor nodes are
communication and networking for enhanced ocean monitor- anchored to the bottom of the ocean with deep ocean anchors.
ing and exploration applications. By means of wireless acoustic links, underwater sensor nodes
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In are interconnected to one or more underwater sinks (uw-sinks),
Section II, we introduce the communication architecture of which are network devices in charge of relaying data from the
underwater acoustic networks. In Section III, we investigate ocean bottom network to a surface station. To achieve this ob-
the underwater acoustic communication channel and summa- jective, uw-sinks are equipped with two acoustic transceivers,
rize the associated physical layer challenges for underwater namely a vertical and a horizontal transceiver. The horizontal
networking. In Section IV we discuss the challenges associated transceiver is used by the uw-sink to communicate with the
to the design of a new protocol stack for underwater commu- sensor nodes in order to: i) send commands and configuration
nications, while in Section V we draw the main conclusions. data to the sensors (uw-sink to sensors); ii) collect monitored
data (sensors to uw-sink). The vertical link is used by the uw-
II. U NDERWATER ACOUSTIC S ENSOR N ETWORKS sinks to relay data to a surface station. Vertical transceivers
(UW-ASN) C OMMUNICATION A RCHITECTURE must be long range transceivers for deep water applications
In this section, we describe the communication architecture as the ocean can be as deep as 10 km. The surface station is
of Underwater acoustic sensor networks. The reference archi- equipped with an acoustic transceiver that is able to handle
tectures described in this section are used as a basis for dis- multiple parallel communications with the deployed uw-sinks.
cussion of the challenges associated with underwater acoustic It is also endowed with a long range RF and/or satellite
 TABLE I
AVAILABLE BANDWIDTH FOR DIFFERENT RANGES IN UW-A CHANNELS

Range [km] Bandwidth [kHz]

Very Long 1000 <1
Long 10 − 100 2−5
Medium 1 − 10 ≈ 10
Short 0.1 − 1 20 − 50
Very Short < 0.1 > 100

the sensor network, multiple floating buoys may obstruct ships

navigating on the surface, or they can be easily detected and
deactivated by enemies in military settings.
For these reasons, a different approach can be to anchor
sensor devices to the bottom of the ocean. In this architecture,
depicted in Fig. 2, each sensor is anchored to the ocean bottom
Fig. 2. Architecture for 3D Underwater Sensor Networks. and equipped with a floating buoy that can be inflated by a
pump. The buoy pushes the sensor towards the ocean surface.
The depth of the sensor can then be regulated by adjusting the
transmitter to communicate with the onshore sink (os-sink) length of the wire that connects the sensor to the anchor, by
or to a surface sink (s-sink). means of an electronically controlled engine that resides on
Sensors can be connected to uw-sinks via direct links or the sensor.
through multi-hop paths. In the former case, each sensor Many challenges arise with such an architecture, that need
directly sends the gathered data to the selected uw-sink. This to be solved in order to enable 3D monitoring, including:
is the simplest way to network sensors, but it may not be • Sensing coverage. Sensors should collaboratively regu-
the most energy efficient, since the sink may be far from the late their depth in order to achieve full column coverage,
node and the power necessary to transmit may decay with according to their sensing ranges. Hence, it must be
powers greater than two of the distance. Furthermore, direct possible to obtain sampling of the desired phenomenon
links are very likely to reduce the network throughput because at all depths.
of increased acoustic interference due to high transmission • Communication coverage. Since in 3D underwater net-
power. In case of multi-hop paths, as in terrestrial sensor works there is no notion of uw-sink, sensors should be
networks [5], the data produced by a source sensor is relayed able to relay information to the surface station via multi-
by intermediate sensors until it reaches the uw-sink. This hop paths. Thus, network devices should coordinate their
results in energy savings and increased network capacity but depths such a way that the network topology is always
increases the complexity of the routing functionality as well. In connected, i.e., at least one path from every sensor to the
fact, every network device usually takes part in a collaborative surface station always exists.
process whose objective is to diffuse topology information
such that efficient and loop free routing decisions can be made
III. BASICS OF ACOUSTIC C OMMUNICATIONS
at each intermediate node. This process involves signaling and
computation. Since, as discussed above, energy and capacity Underwater acoustic communications are mainly influenced
are precious resources in underwater environments, in UW- by path loss, noise, multi-path, Doppler spread, and high and
ASNs the objective is to deliver event features by exploiting variable propagation delay. All these factors determine the
multi-hop paths and minimizing the signaling overhead nec- temporal and spatial variability of the acoustic channel, and
essary to construct underwater paths at the same time. make the available bandwidth of the UnderWater Acoustic
(UW-A) channel limited and dramatically dependent on both
range and frequency. Long-range systems that operate over
B. Three-dimensional Underwater Sensor Networks several tens of kilometers may have a bandwidth of only a few
Three dimensional underwater networks are used to detect kHz, while a short-range system operating over several tens
and observe phenomena that can not be adequately observed of meters may have more than a hundred kHz bandwidth. In
by means of ocean bottom sensor nodes, i.e., to perform both cases these factors lead to low bit rates [6]. Moreover,
cooperative sampling of the 3D ocean environment. In three- the communication range is dramatically reduced as compared
dimensional underwater networks, sensor nodes float at dif- to the terrestrial radio channel.
ferent depths in order to observe a given phenomenon. One Underwater acoustic communication links can be classified
possible solution would be to attach each uw-sensor node to a according to their range as very long, long, medium, short,
surface buoy, by means of wires whose length can be regulated and very short links [1]. Table I shows typical bandwidths of
so as to adjust the depth of each sensor node. However, the underwater channel for different ranges. Acoustic links are
although this solution allows easy and quick deployment of also roughly classified as vertical and horizontal, according to
the direction of the sound ray. As shown after, their propaga- receiver, requiring sophisticated signal processing to deal
tion characteristics differ consistently, especially with respect with the generated ISI.
to time dispersion, multi-path spreads, and delay variance. In Most of the described factors are caused by the chemical-
the following, as usually done in oceanic literature, shallow physical properties of the water medium such as temperature,
water refers to water with depth lower than 100m, while deep salinity and density, and by their spatio-temporal variations.
water is used for deeper oceans. These variations, together with the wave guide nature of the
In the following we analyze the factors that influence channel, cause the acoustic channel to be temporally and
acoustic communications in order to state the challenges posed spatially variable. In particular, the horizontal channel is by
by the underwater channels for underwater sensor networking. far more rapidly varying than the vertical channel, in both deep
These include: and shallow water.
Path loss:
• Attenuation. Is mainly provoked by absorption due to IV. A P ROTOCOL S TACK FOR U NDERWATER ACOUSTIC
conversion of acoustic energy into heat, which increases C OMMUNICATIONS
with distance and frequency. It is also caused by scat- In this section, we briefly discuss the design of a new
tering and reverberation (on rough ocean surface and protocol stack for underwater acoustic communications. In
bottom), refraction, and dispersion (due to the displace- Sections IV-A, IV-B, IV-C and IV-D we discuss physical, data
ment of the reflection point caused by wind on the link, network and transport layer issues in underwater sensor
surface). Water depth plays a key role in determining the networks, respectively.
attenuation.
• Geometric Spreading. This refers to the spreading of
sound energy as a result of the expansion of the wave- A. Physical Layer
fronts. It increases with the propagation distance and is Until the beginning of the last decade underwater modem
independent of frequency. There are two common kinds development was based on non-coherent frequency shift key-
of geometric spreading: spherical (omni-directional point ing (FSK) modulations, since these techniques do not require
source), and cylindrical (horizontal radiation only). phase tracking, which is a very difficult task in underwater.
Noise: Although non-coherent modulation schemes are character-
• Man made noise. This is mainly caused by machinery
ized by a high power efficiency, their low bandwidth efficiency
noise (pumps, reduction gears, power plants, etc.), and makes them unsuitable for high data-rate multiuser networks.
shipping activity (hull fouling, animal life on hull, cavi- Hence, coherent modulation techniques have been developed
tation). for long-range, high-throughput systems. In the last years, fully
• Ambient Noise. Is related to hydrodynamics (movement
coherent modulation techniques, such as phase shift keying
of water including tides, currents, storms, wind, rain, (PSK) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), have
etc.), seismic and biological phenomena. become practical due to the availability of powerful digital
processing [2].
Multi-path: In horizontal underwater channels, especially in shallow
• Multi-path propagation may be responsible for severe water, the time-variability of the channel is the primary limita-
degradation of the acoustic communication signal, since tion to the performance of conventional receivers. Multi-path
it generates Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI). phenomena create two problems. The first one is the delay
• The multi-path geometry depends on the link configura- spread, which causes ISI at the receiver side. The other one is
tion. Vertical channels are characterized by little time dis- the phase shift of the signal envelope. Thus, high speed phase
persion, whereas horizontal channels may have extremely coherent communications are difficult because of the combined
long multi-path spreads, whose value depend on the water effect of the time varying multi-path and of the Doppler spread
depth. [7].
High delay and delay variance:
• The propagation speed in the UW-A channel is five orders B. Data Link Layer
of magnitude lower than in the radio channel. This large
Multiple access techniques are developed to allow devices to
propagation delay (0.67 s/km) can reduce the throughput
access a common medium, sharing the scarce available band-
of the system considerably.
width in an efficient and fair way. Channel Access Control in
• The very high delay variance is even more harmful for
UW-ASN poses additional challenges due to the peculiarities
efficient protocol design, as it prevents from accurately
of the underwater channel, in particular limited bandwidth and
estimating the round trip time (RTT), key measure for
high and variable delay.
many common communication protocols.
Multiple access techniques can be roughly divided into
Doppler spread: two main categories [8]: i) contention free, such as FDMA,
• The Doppler frequency spread can be significant in UW- TDMA, and CDMA and ii) non-contention free, which are
A channels [1], causing a degradation in the performance either based on random access (ALOHA, slotted-ALOHA),
of digital communications: transmissions at a high data on carrier sense access (CSMA), or on collision avoidance
rate cause many adjacent symbols to interfere at the with handshaking access (MACA, MACAW). In the following
we discuss the suitability of each of these techniques for channel. These similarities would suggest to tune and apply
underwater networks. those schemes in the underwater environment; on the other
Frequency division multiple access (FDMA) divides the hand, the main focus in medium access control in WSN
available band into sub-bands, and assigns each sub-band to a is on energy-latency tradeoffs. S-MAC [10], for example,
device. Due to the narrow bandwidth in UW-A channels and aims at decreasing the energy consumption by using sleep
to the vulnerability of limited band systems to fading, FDMA schedules with virtual clustering. Anyway, although this non-
is not suitable for UW-ASN [2]. contention free access scheme is provided with an effective
Time division multiple access (TDMA) divides time into collision avoidance mechanism, it may not be suitable for
slots, providing time guards to limit packet collisions from an environment where dense sensor deployment cannot be
adjacent time slots. These time guards are designed to be assumed, as discussed in Section II.
proportional to the propagation delay of the channel. Due
to the characteristics of the underwater environment it is
C. Network Layer
very challenging to realize a precise synchronization, with
a common timing reference, which is required for a proper The network layer is in charge of determining how messages
utilization of time slots in TDMA. Moreover, due to the are routed within the network. In UW-ASNs, this translates
high delay and delay variance of the UW-A channel, TDMA into determining which path should data packets follow from
efficiency is limited because of the high time guards required the source that samples the physical phenomenon to the
to implement it. onshore sink.
Code division multiple access (CDMA) allows multiple In the last few years there has been an intensive study in
devices to transmit simultaneously over the entire frequency routing protocols for ad hoc wireless networks [11]. However,
band. Signals from different devices are distinguished by due to the different nature of the underwater environment
means of pseudo-noise codes that are used for spreading and applications, there are several drawbacks with respect
the user signal over the entire available band. This makes to the suitability of the existing solutions for Underwater
the signal resistant to frequency selective fading caused by Acoustic Networks. The existing routing protocols are usually
multi-paths. In conclusion, although the high delay spread divided into three categories, namely proactive, reactive and
which characterizes the horizontal link in underwater channels geographical routing protocols [11]:
makes it difficult to maintain synchronization among the • Proactive protocols (e.g., DSDV, OLSR). These proto-
stations, especially when orthogonal code techniques are used cols attempt to minimize the message latency induced
[9], CDMA is a promising multiple access technique for by route discovery, by maintaining up-to-date routing
underwater acoustic networks. information at all times from each node to every other
ALOHA is a class of MAC protocols that do not try to node. This is obtained by broadcasting control packets
prevent packet collision, but detect collision and retransmit lost that contain routing table information (e.g., distance vec-
packets. In the UW-A environment, as in the case of TDMA, tors). These protocols provoke a large signaling overhead
ALOHA protocols are affected by low efficiency, mainly due to establish routes for the first time and each time the
to the slow propagation of the acoustic channel. Moreover, the network topology is modified because of mobility or node
need for retransmissions increases the power consumption of failures, since updated topology information has to be
sensors, and ultimately reduces the network lifetime. propagated to all the nodes in the network. This way,
Carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) protocols are aimed each node is able to establish a path to any other node
at reducing the packet retransmissions, by monitoring the in the network, which may not be needed in UW-ASNs.
channel state: if the channel is sensed busy, packet transmis- For this reason, proactive protocols are not suitable for
sion is inhibited so as to prevent collisions with the ongoing underwater networks.
transmission. If the channel is sensed free, transmission is • Reactive protocols (e.g., AODV, DSR). A node initiates a
enabled. However this approach, although it prevents collisions route discovery process only when a route to a destination
at the sender, does not avoid collisions at the receiver due to is required. Once a route has been established, it is
the hidden and exposed terminal problems [8]. maintained by a route maintenance procedure until it is
Contention based techniques that use handshaking mech- no longer desired. These protocols are more suitable for
anisms, such as RTS/CTS in shared medium access (e.g., dynamic environments but incur a higher latency and
MACA, IEEE 802.11) are impractical in underwater, due to still require source-initiated flooding of control packets
the following reasons: i) Large delays in the propagation of to establish paths. Thus, both proactive and reactive
RTS/CTS control packets lead to low throughput; ii) The protocols incur excessive signaling overhead due to their
high propagation delay of underwater channels impairs the extensive reliance on flooding. Reactive protocols are
carrier sense mechanism; iii) The high variability of delay in deemed to be unsuitable for UW-ASNs as they also cause
handshaking packets makes it impractical to predict the start a higher latency which may even be amplified by the slow
and finish time of the transmissions of other stations. Thus, propagation of acoustic signals in the underwater channel.
collisions are highly likely to occur. Moreover the topology of UW-ASNs is unlikely to vary
Many novel access schemes have been designed for ter- dynamically on a short time scale.
restrial sensor networks, whose objectives are to maximize • Geographical Routing Protocols (e.g. GPSR, PTKF
the network efficiency and prevent collisions in the access [12]). These protocols establish source-destination paths
 by leveragingViewlocalization
publication stats information, i.e., each node minimum energy expenditure. However, the ESRT mechanism
selects its next hop based on the position of its neighbors relies on spatial correlation among event flows which may not
and of the destination node. Although these techniques be easily leveraged in underwater acoustic sensor networks.
are very promising, it is still not clear how accurate lo- Hence, further investigation is needed to develop efficient
calization information can be obtained in the underwater transport layer solutions.
environment with limited energy expenditure.
Thus, routing schemes that jointly minimize the signaling V. C ONCLUSIONS
overhead and the latency need to be developed. While most In this paper, we overviewed the main challenges for effi-
developed protocols for ad hoc networks are based on packet cient communications in underwater acoustic sensor networks.
switching, i.e., the routing function is performed for each We outlined the peculiarities of the underwater channel with
single packet separately, in UW-ASN virtual circuit routing particular reference to networking solutions for monitoring
techniques could be considered. In these techniques, paths are applications of the ocean environment. The ultimate objective
established a priori between each source and sink, and each of this paper is to encourage research efforts to lay down
packet follows the same path. This may require some form of fundamental basis for the development of new advanced
centralized coordination but can lead to more efficient paths communication techniques for efficient underwater commu-
(at the expense of dynamicity). nication and networking for enhanced ocean monitoring and
Furthermore, routing schemes that account for the 3D exploration applications.
underwater environment need to be developed. Especially, in
the 3D case the effect of currents should be taken into account, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
since the intensity and the direction of currents are dependent
The authors wish to thank Dr. Ozgur Akan for the discus-
on the depth of the sensor node. Thus, underwater currents can
sions on the topic and his valuable comments, that greatly
modify the relative position of sensor devices and also cause
improved the quality of this paper.
connectivity holes, especially when ocean column monitoring
is performed in deep waters.
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