Relay Selection in Cooperative Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

The routing in Underwater Acoustic Wireless Sensor Networks is challenging as the underwater environment is harsh and tends to vary unpredictably. Routing in underwater has high delay and also suffer from packet loss. So, Cooperative communication is important for maximizing the channel diversity gain. In Cooperative routing, relay selection is a crucial task. The optimized relay selection enhances the routing performance as well as the overall network performance. Many factors play a key role in a relay selection algorithm design. The relay selection algorithms may be based on variety of criteria’s such as performance, network lifetime, coverage expansion, power management, channel capacity. In this paper, these factors are discussed with respect to relay selection in underwater acoustic wireless sensor networks. This paper highlights the important relay selection design issues and compares the algorithms that are appropriate to cooperative underwater acoustic wireless sensor networks.