Source-Based Disjoint Multipath Routing Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Networks: Protocol Design and Sea Trials

Underwater acoustic communication networks face unique challenges such as limited bandwidth, long propagation delay, and high error rate. To address these challenges, we propose a source-based disjoint multipath routing protocol specifically designed for underwater acoustic networks. In this protocol, each data packet is routed based on the cost of relay nodes, which is determined by factors including initial hop count, energy consumption, and packet collision probability. Once the routing paths are established, the path costs are updated dynamically based on the costs of the relay nodes and their associated interference nodes. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed routing protocol is able to enhance network throughput, reduce end-to-end delay, and increase packet delivery rate. In addition, sea trials carried out in Zhoushan Archipelogoes, China, have confirmed that the proposed method can effectively reduce packet collisions by considering interpath data transmission interference in high-load network scenarios. Compared with the single-path approach and nonweighted approach, this approach significantly reduces end-to-end delay and improves overall network throughput and packet delivery rate.