A new cross layer MAC protocol for data forwarding in underwater acoustic sensor networks

摘要

Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network (UASNs) are deployed in sea for exploration of underwater hidden natural resources. There are certain research issues regarding routing and MAC protocol in the deployment of UASNs. The main challenges may be inefficient network life time, low throughput, high propagation delay and unbalance energy consumption. In order to improve the results of the basic parameters of UASNs, we propose a new cross layer MAC protocol, which integrates network layer and MAC layer, called Fitness Function based Medium Access Control (FF-MAC) protocol for UASNs. We use fitness function for suitability of a node to be selected as forwarder. We also use handshaking mechanism and scheduling algorithm for fair share of channel in the network. The simulation results show that our proposed MAC improves latency and energy consumption compared with Improved Vector Based Forwarding (I-VBF).