Santos Rodrigo, Orozco Javier, Micheletto Matias, Ochoa Sergio F, Meseguer Roc, Millan Pere, Molina And Carlos
Department of Electrical and Computers, Universidad Nacional del Sur, CONICET, Bahía Blanca 8000, Argentina.
Computer Science Department, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8370456, Chile.
Sensors (Basel). 2017 Jul 14;17(7):1629. doi: 10.3390/s17071629.
Underwater sensor networks represent an important and promising field of research due to the large diversity of underwater ubiquitous applications that can be supported by these networks, e.g., systems that deliver tsunami and oil spill warnings, or monitor submarine ecosystems. Most of these monitoring and warning systems require real-time communication in wide area networks that have a low density of nodes. The underwater communication medium involved in these networks is very harsh and imposes strong restrictions to the communication process. In this scenario, the real-time transmission of information is done mainly using acoustic signals, since the network nodes are not physically close. The features of the communication scenario and the requirements of the communication process represent major challenges for designers of both, communication protocols and monitoring and warning systems. The lack of models to represent these networks is the main stumbling block for the proliferation of underwater ubiquitous systems. This paper presents a real-time communication model for underwater acoustic sensor networks (UW-ASN) that are designed to cover wide areas with a low density of nodes, using any-to-any communication. This model is analytic, considers two solution approaches for scheduling the real-time messages, and provides a time-constraint analysis for the network performance. Using this model, the designers of protocols and underwater ubiquitous systems can quickly prototype and evaluate their solutions in an evolving way, in order to determine the best solution to the problem being addressed. The suitability of the proposal is illustrated with a case study that shows the performance of a UW-ASN under several initial conditions. This is the first analytic model for representing real-time communication in this type of network, and therefore, it opens the door for the development of underwater ubiquitous systems for several application scenarios.
水下传感器网络是一个重要且充满前景的研究领域，因为这些网络能够支持多种多样的水下普及应用，例如提供海啸和石油泄漏预警的系统，或者监测海底生态系统的系统。这些监测和预警系统中的大多数都需要在节点密度较低的广域网中进行实时通信。这些网络所涉及的水下通信介质非常恶劣，对通信过程施加了严格的限制。在这种情况下，由于网络节点在物理上并不靠近，信息的实时传输主要通过声学信号来完成。通信场景的特点和通信过程的要求对通信协议以及监测和预警系统的设计者来说都是重大挑战。缺乏能够表示这些网络的模型是水下普及系统推广的主要绊脚石。本文提出了一种用于水下声学传感器网络（UW - ASN）的实时通信模型，该模型旨在使用任意对任意通信方式覆盖节点密度较低的广阔区域。这个模型是解析性的，考虑了两种调度实时消息的解决方案，并对网络性能进行了时间约束分析。利用这个模型，协议和水下普及系统的设计者能够以一种不断演进的方式快速制作其解决方案的原型并进行评估，以便确定针对所解决问题的最佳方案。通过一个案例研究说明了该提议的适用性，该案例展示了UW - ASN在几种初始条件下的性能。这是第一个用于表示此类网络中实时通信的解析模型，因此，它为针对多种应用场景开发水下普及系统打开了大门。
