EERBCR: Energy-efficient regional based cooperative routing protocol for underwater sensor networks with sink mobility

The balance energy consumption of nodes is a key factor to prolong network lifetime. A sensor node in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs), has very limited power battery, therefore, utilizing the power battery in efficient manner is still a challenging task. To enhance network lifetime, we proposed an Energy-Efficient Regional base Cooperative Routing (EERBCR) protocol with sink mobility for UWSNs. In EERBCR, we divided the network field in 12 regions, three by four vertically and horizontally respectively. Total numbers of four mobile sinks are positioned, having equal distance to each other while 100 sensors nodes are deployed randomly. Each mobile sink travels on pre-defined straight path and covers 3 regions. All the sensor nodes are in sleeping mode, until the sink arrives to their region, upon the arrival of sink node to a region, it broadcasts a hello message. All the nodes in that region receive that message and activate themselves. When the sink is about to leave the region, it broadcasts another packet, informing the nodes about its departure so that the nodes go back into sleeping mode. The simulation results show the validity of EERBCR as it performed better than Depth-Based Routing (DBR), Energy Efficient Depth-Based Routing (EEDBR) and depth and energy-aware dominating set (DEADS) protocols.

Automated summary

The proposed Energy-Efficient Regional base Cooperative Routing (EERBCR) protocol for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) enhances network lifetime by dividing the network field into regions, using mobile sinks, and activating nodes based on sink proximity. Simulation results show the superiority of EERBCR over other routing protocols.