A Review on Routing Protocols and Deployment Challenges Concerning Underwater Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are the technological advancement possessing tremendous application potential in monitoring real-time maritime activities. Many of the applications make use of sensor nodes deployed at different depth in the interested region. The node beneath the water communicates with node near water surface using multi-hop communication assisted by suitable routing protocols. However, the communication is governed by environmental constraints. Also, there are issues like large propagation delay and limited link capacity. The pipe blockage removal application is one such application where environmental conditions are dynamic. Therefore, there is need to pay significant attention to construct reliable scheme and resource aware efficient routing protocol between the source and the sink node. Here, we present the broad review on issues concerning underwater pipe blockage removal and compare various routing protocols reported in recent literature. The study mainly aims at comparing the available routing protocols, test beds, simulation platforms, and analysis tools available with research community.