Data collection in underwater wireless sensor networks: performance evaluation of FBR and epidemic routing protocols for node density and area shape

Data collection in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSN) is not a trivial problem, because of unpredictable delays and unstable links between underwater devices. Moreover, when nodes are mobile continuous connectivity is not guaranteed. Therefore, data collection in UWSN, node scarcity and movement patterns create different environment for data collection in underwater communication. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the area shape and node density in UWSN, by comparing Focused Beam Routing (FBR) and Epidemic Routing protocols. Furthermore, we also analyse the correlation between different performance metrics. From simulation results we found that when using FBR, delay and delivery probability slightly decrease (2.1%) but the overhead ratio decreases noticeably (46.9%). The correlation between performance metrics is stronger for square area shape, and not noticeable for deep area shape.