Adaptive Data Broadcasting in Underwater Wireless Networks

Underwater acoustic networks have recently emerged as a new area of research in wireless networking. These networks can support a large number of applications such as environmental and underwater equipment monitoring. In recent years, there has been substantial work on protocol design for these networks with most efforts focusing on MAC and network layer protocols. Despite being a fundamental networking primitive, data broadcasting has so far received little attention in the context of underwater networks. This paper proposes an adaptive push system for dissemination of data in underwater acoustic wireless networks. Besides achieving adaptation of its broadcast schedule according to the a priori unknown needs of the clients, the proposed system also efficiently combats the problem of high latency of the underwater acoustic wireless environment. Simulation results show superior performance of the proposed system in the underwater environment compared to adaptations of existing terrestrial push systems.