Performance analysis of ARQ protocols in multiuser underwater acoustic networks

The long propagation delay and the high bit error rate of underwater acoustic channel greatly affect the performance efficiency of underwater acoustic networks (UWANs). In this paper, we propose three ARQ schemes for UWANs, namely selective repeat-ARQ, Type-I Hybrid ARQ and Type-II Hybrid ARQ, where the transmissions of data and acknowledgment packets are interlaced. The proposed ARQ schemes are designed in the multiuser UWAN with single-hop network topology, and the media access control is the time division multiple access. The performance of the proposed ARQ schemes, in terms of the transmission efficiency and the average transmission delay of a packet, is analyzed, and the closed-form expressions of the performance metrics are derived. By comparisons, the best choices of the ARQ scheme in different network parameter scenarios are given.