MPDF: Movement predicted data forwarding protocol for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Due to the unique characteristics of acoustic communication channel, reliable data transfer in underwater is difficult in applications such as pollution monitoring, oceano-graphic data collection, surveillance, etc. To handle this issue, an Opportunistic Message Forwarding Protocol (OMFP) [1], which selects next hop forwarders based on link reliability and data transfer reachability, was proposed for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs). The protocol shows improved performance over some existing popular and reputed underwater data forwarding approaches. However, OMFP has not considered node movement which is a natural phenomenon underwater. Besides high error probability and dynamicity of underwater acoustic channel, node movement also makes data forwarding process difficult. In addition to the link reliability and reachability, incorporation of neighbors´ coverage probability in terms of their movement pattern in the next hop selection will further increase the reliability of forwarder selection process and decrease the chances of packet loss. To address this issue, this paper presents a new approach, namely, Movement Predicted Data Forwarding (MPDF) protocol. In MPDF, every node predicts its future movement pattern due to various contributory factors and estimates node´s location, coverage probability without using any “active” localization technique. The simulation results show that the proposed technique improves data delivery ratio, routing overhead with comparable energy consumption.