AUV-Aided Isolated Sub-Network Prevention for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

This short paper presents an AUV-aided isolated sub-networks (ISNs) prevention protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs). In a multi-hop UWSN, the death of a special node, namely the cut-vertex (CV), divides the network into the main network and an ISN. This results in a loss of data generated by the ISN. To overcome this problem, in the proposed protocol, the AUV first determines a CV by utilizing the information collected from the sensor nodes. Then, using the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation, the AUV predicts the residual energy of the CV in future time-slots and guarantees that it reaches the CV before the CV's energy is depleted and an ISN is formed. The AUV then collects data from the sensor nodes instead of the CV. During the time-slots in which the AUV performs data collection, the CV harvests energy from ambient underwater sources and rejoins the network after it has sufficiently recharged its energy. Our preliminary simulation results show that the proposed protocol outperforms the stratification-based data collection scheme and Q-learning-based topology-aware routing protocol in terms of network lifetime and delay.