A Dynamic Equilibrium Routing Protocol With Delay and Break Tolerance for UANs

Research on underwater networks has been ongoing for decades. Nevertheless, the evolving operational requirements for highly dynamic and reconfigurable underwater systems demonstrate the insufficiency of traditional network studies constrained to either fixed infrastructure or hybrid topologies with minimal AUV participation, they often fail to address the challenges of fully mobile ad-hoc configurations. Therefore, this paper makes three key contributions to advance research on ad-hoc mobile underwater acoustic networks (AMUAN). First, we present a comprehensive analysis of current limitations and establish the dedicated solution for critical AMUAN needs. Second, we propose a novel lightweight dynamic adaptive routing algorithm specifically optimized for underwater environments with limited communication conditions. Our approach features include a delay/disruption-tolerant protocol based on opportunistic routing principles, and an innovative multi-parameter fusion equilibrium algorithm for neighborhood management and forwarding strategy optimization. Third, through extensive simulations evaluating delay, energy efficiency, security, and network lifetime, we demonstrate our scheme’s superior performance compared to existing solutions. The results particularly highlight exceptional adaptability in dynamic high-load conditions (achieving 15% lower latency than conventional methods) and robust malicious node detection (with 25% security improvement), showcasing its significant advantages and potential for broader application.