Adaptive hop-by-hop cone vector-based forwarding protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks

In the recent past, a significant increase has been observed in the use of underwater wireless sensor networks for aquatic applications. However, underwater wireless sensor networks face several challenges including large propagation delays, high mobility, limited bandwidth, three-dimensional deployments, expensive manufacturing, and energy constraints. It is crucial for underwater wireless sensor networks to mitigate all these limitations primarily caused by the harsh underwater environment. To address some of the pertinent challenges, adaptive hop-by-hop cone vector-based forwarding routing protocol is proposed in this article which is based on the adaptive hop-by-hop vector-based forwarding. The novelty of adaptive hop-by-hop cone vector-based forwarding includes increasing the transmission reliability in sparse sensor regions by changing the base angle of the cone according to the network structure. The number of duplicate packets and end-to-end delay is also reduced because of the reduced base angle and a smart selection criterion for the potential forwarder node. The proposed routing protocol adaptively tunes the height and opening of the cone based on the network structure to effectively improve the performance of the network. Conclusively, this approach significantly reduces energy tax, end-to-end delay, and packet delivery ratio.