Santhosh Kumar, G; Saseendran Pillai, P R; Shenoy, S K; Sumi, Samad A(IEEE, 2011)
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Abstract:
One of the major applications of underwater acoustic sensor networks (UWASN) is ocean environment
monitoring. Employing data mules is an energy efficient way of data collection from the underwater sensor
nodes in such a network. A data mule node such as an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) periodically
visits the stationary nodes to download data. By conserving the power required for data transmission over
long distances to a remote data sink, this approach extends the network life time. In this paper we propose a
new MAC protocol to support a single mobile data mule node to collect the data sensed by the sensor nodes in
periodic runs through the network. In this approach, the nodes need to perform only short distance, single hop
transmission to the data mule. The protocol design discussed in this paper is motivated to support such an
application.
The proposed protocol is a hybrid protocol, which employs a combination of schedule based access
among the stationary nodes along with handshake based access to support mobile data mules. The new
protocol, RMAC-M is developed as an extension to the energy efficient MAC protocol R-MAC by extending
the slot time of R-MAC to include a contention part for a hand shake based data transfer. The mobile node
makes use of a beacon to signal its presence to all the nearby nodes, which can then hand-shake with the
mobile node for data transfer. Simulation results show that the new protocol provides efficient support for a
mobile data mule node while preserving the advantages of R-MAC such as energy efficiency and fairness.