Scheduling algorithm with transmission power control for random underwater acoustic networks

Underwater acoustic communication networks face several challenges: large propagation delays, low bandwidth and high transmission power. Recent studies exploit the large propagation delay to allow concurrent transmissions in the network. Given a suitable network geometry, it has been shown that the network throughput increases linearly with the number of nodes, provided optimal transmission schedules are adopted. Although the throughput in an arbitrary network geometry is often more constrained, it can be increased by controlling transmission power. Power control helps reduce energy consumption and limit interference. We investigate achievable throughput in randomly deployed underwater acoustic networks by controlling transmission power. We develop joint scheduling and power control algorithm for arbitrary networks, and demonstrate performance improvement in a large number of random network geometries. We also present some network geometries for which optimal throughput is achieved by using transmission schedules with power control.