Simulation of underwater acoustic networks with field measurements

Due to both logistical and technical difficulties of deploying realistic underwater acoustic networks, research involving underwater networks has primarily been limited to either theoretical analysis or simulation study. For simulation, however, there exist few commonly accepted acoustic channel models, which makes simulation study less realistic. The Kauai Acomms MURI 2008 (KAM08) experiment was conducted near Hawaii in Summer 2008, which provided us with first-hand, physical measurements of realistic acoustic communications. The paper describes how the measurements of the KAM08 experiment were programmed into a custom acoustic channel model for the QualNet simulator. We also simulated a underwater networking scenario that used an adaptive modulation scheme to optimize the energy efficiency so as to demonstrate the utility of the custom acoustic channel model.