The design of routing protocols for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) poses many challenges due to the intrinsic properties of underwater environments. In this paper we present DUCS (Distributed Underwater Clustering Scheme), a new GPS-free routing protocol that does not use flooding techniques, minimizes the proactive routing message exchange and uses data aggregation to eliminate redundant information. Besides, DUCS assumes random node mobility and compensates the high propagation delays of the underwater medium using a continually adjusted timing advance combined with guard time values to minimize data loss. The theoretical and simulation studies carried out demonstrate its effectiveness.
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