Design and simulation of an underwater acoustic network

Underwater acoustic networks can be used for oceanographic data collection, pollution monitoring, offshore exploration and tactical surveillance applications. In this paper, considering the limit factors of underwater channel, a CDMA-based underwater acoustic network is designed and implemented, which features multiuser detection receiver and RTS-CTS-DATA-ACK exchange with network allocation vector (NAV) collision avoidance mechanism. A simulation consisting of 1 master node and 5 sensor nodes is established and tested. Results show that, based on multiuser detection receivers in the physical layer of the master node, the network can overcome collisions and reduce the number of retransmissions, therefore, larger throughput and less energy consumption are achieved consequently.