Energy Efficient Designs of an Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network for Ocean Current Monitoring

Attarsharghi, Samareh and Masek, Vlastimil (2016) Energy Efficient Designs of an Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network for Ocean Current Monitoring. Journal of Ocean Technology, 11 (3). pp. 60-81. ISSN 1718-3200

[English] PDF Download (1MB)

Abstract

Providing energy to an underwater sensor network has always been a challenge due to the rough condition at sea as well as the lack of access to deployed equipment for battery replacement. Moreover, the lack of solar energy excludes the use of solar cells in cold oceanic regions. In such harsh conditions, maximizing sensors’ life time is an essential goal. In the area of ocean current measurement, some of the existing methods are mostly limited to measure only the surface current and not the shallow water current, while some other methods measure the speed of water in a vertical column only at one location. There are other systems that measure and store the current data of different locations and depths over time (few days) so the current data saved in them are not real-time. This study aims to overcome some of these limitations and proposes a real-time measurement method for wide area averaged current. Thus, in this paper, novel underwater sensor network topologies and architectures have been designed and proposed. These new proposed architecture designs specifically aim to maximize the network lifetime by minimizing the energy demand of the whole network. For this purpose, two types of network topologies, Hexagonal and Square, with two different configurations of with- and without-centre node for each type, have been designed and offered. The method used in the current measurement networks is based on transit time method and could be considered a modified version. Using the new modified measurement method, these novel architecture designs unravel the limitations of the existing current measurement methods. In this paper, the proposed architecture designs’ performance has been compared to each other and also their pros and cons have been discussed.

Actions (login required)

View Item