A Comprehensive Survey of Recent Routing Protocols for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Abstract

Underwater Sensor Networks (UWSN) have attracted huge attention due to their significance in oceanic observation and exploration. They offer a vast number of applications, many of which require routing the sensed data to a centralized location. This makes routing an important part of the design of such applications. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of recently proposed routing protocols for UWSNs. We evaluate the proposed schemes through an extensive set of parameters that define the core characteristics of a routing protocol. Moreover, we present a summary of the methods used by each scheme to familiarize readers with the basic operations of the schemes. We also present our view of the strengths and weakness of each scheme. For ease of description, the addressed routing protocols are divided into two categories: localization-based, and localization-free routing schemes. Each of the two categories is further divided into the protocols that consider node mobility, and those that do not. Lastly, we present our view on open research topics.