An Efficient Fault-Prevention Clustering Protocol for Robust Underwater Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose an efficient fault-prevention clustering protocol for improving the lifetime and robustness of underwater sensor networks (UWSNs). The proposed clustering protocol takes into account both the reliability and residual energy status of each sensor node during clustering, and attempts to select those healthy nodes as cluster heads through failure prediction, cost evaluation, and clustering optimization. The purpose of failure prediction is to predict the potential failure of an underwater sensor based on its lifetime distribution so that those unhealthy nodes are prevented from being selected as cluster heads. Cost evaluation is introduced to evaluate the cost caused by the failure of a cluster head. Clustering optimization aims to construct a cluster hierarchy that minimizes the overall cost of all selected clusters based on the cost evaluation of each sensor node. The simulation results show that the proposed clustering protocol can not only significantly prolong network lifetime, but also improves network robustness and capacity compared with existing clustering protocols.