lighting-zhu / underwater-wirless-sensor-network

Master Thesis Project: SENSOR NODE LOCALIZATION AND OPTO-ACOUSTIC COMMUNICATION IN UNDERWATER WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK

underwater-wirless-sensor-network

Master Thesis Project: SENSOR NODE LOCALIZATION AND OPTO-ACOUSTIC COMMUNICATION IN UNDERWATER WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK Submitted: Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh

Abstract Underwater WSN is growing as an important area of research with its applications ranging from oceanography to early warning systems for natural disasters (like tsunamis), ecosystem monitoring, oil drilling, and military surveillance. The work undertaken revolves around underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSN) as a domain and focuses upon its simulation aspects with a discrete event simulator- Qualnet. QualNet 5.0, a simulator for wired and wireless communication networks, provides Radio channel models like 802.11a, 802.11b, Abstract etc. as the physical layer interfaces. These work well with the terrestrial terrain networks but are unsuccessful when underwater terrain is considered as radio wave does not propagate well in underwater environment. Radio waves are highly attenuated inside water, therefore cannot be used for communication. For long range underwater communication including node localization, acoustic communication is the most trusted and reliable technology but falls short of being the best with the limitation of lower data rate. Hereby, optical links, which have high data rate, have an edge for marine short-range communication. To simulate a network performance with Qualnet, we perform channel modelling to create the underwater communication medium for both the acoustic and optical links between nodes. The need arises because Qualnet 5.0 does not cater to marine environments nor provide any built-in channel for the same. In this dissertation work, both optical and acoustic links are studied, since both the technologies, if used together, can optimize the performance of the network. Correspondingly, physical layer protocols and communication mediums are modelled followed by analysis of network performance for various data rates, propagation distances and different transmission power.