Received December 3, 2019, accepted December 17, 2019, date of publication December 24, 2019, date of current version

January 3, 2020.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2962004

A Stable and Reliable Short-Path Routing

Scheme for Efficient Acoustic Wireless
Sensor Networks (AWSNs)
UBAID ULLAH 1 , ALI RAZA SHAHID 2,3 , (Student Member, IEEE),
MUHAMMAD IRFAN2,4 , (Student Member, IEEE), JUNAID QADIR 1 ,
MEHMOOD NAWAZ 2 , AND RIZWAN QURESHI 2 , (Student Member, IEEE)
1 Department of Electronics, Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
2 Department of Electrical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
3 Department of Electrical Engineering, COMSATS University Islamabad, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan
4 Department of Electrical Engineering, CECOS University of IT and Emerging Sciences, Peshawar 45550, Pakistan

Corresponding author: Ali Raza Shahid ([Link]@[Link])

ABSTRACT Owning to the vital resources in a harsh and unforeseeable aqueous environment, the net-
work stability and reliability in underwater acoustic wireless sensor networks (UAWSNs) have paramount
significance. Stability guarantees the consistent performance of the network node’s energy consumption,
avoids data loss, packets reception time and network lifetime. The reliability of packet ensures the selection
of favorable channel and avoid adverse channel effects, and the vital information is easily obtained from
data packets. This paper introduces two new routing schemes for UAWSNs; stable and reliable short-path
routing (RSPR) scheme, and cooperative reliable short-path routing (CoRSPR). In RSPR routing, the des-
tination node is selected by considering the weighting function parameters of the highest residual energy,
highest SNR, lowest euclidean distance, and least number of neighbor nodes. The scheme reduces the energy
consumption due to less number of nodes contribution in the packet advancement process. The RSPR
protocol is a non-cooperative technique, where the packets are delivered using a single-path link, which
may not be consistently reliable. To cope with this issue, the CoRSPR protocol is proposed, which takes
cooperative routing into account, for stable and reliable data delivery. In cooperative routing, the reception
of more than one copy of the data packet is involved by the destination node. This reduces the unfavorable
channel effects during data delivery. The simulation results show that the proposed schemes achieve better
performance in terms of dead nodes, energy left in the battery, packet acceptance ratio, successful receiving
of packets at the sink and E-2-E delay.

INDEX TERMS Acoustic wireless sensor networks, short-path routing, network reliability, RSPR, CoRSPR.

I. INTRODUCTION the final destination with good accuracy is a difficult task.

In underwater communication, a stable network and reli- The probability of the data loss is high because of multi-path
able communications are the most prominent challenges. fading, salinity, noise and attenuation [2]. Due to these chal-
Both challenges need much attention when using underwater lenges, acoustic waves are used for delivery of data packets
acoustic wireless sensor networks (UAWSNs for applications
instead of radio waves [3]. The speed of acoustic waves in
such as disaster provocations, marine detection and oceano-
water is much lower than the radio waves [4]. The problem
graphic information [1]. In addition, maximum correct packet
reception and network stability are an essential part of a of data latency is grater than the terrestrial network, as of
successful communication system. The acoustic channel has the low speed [5]. In underwater communication, the nodes
a very challenging environment, and the data reception at position change with the water current. So the changing of
the position of the nodes makes the network dynamic and
The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and unstable. The stability of the network is a key parameter,
approving it for publication was Jiankang Zhang . because the underwater nodes have limited battery power,

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see [Link]
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and replacement or recharging of the node is difficult in towards the destination node. In the RSPR scheme, due to
underwater [6]. the single path routing, it consumes minimum energy and
Cooperative routing overcomes the packet reliability prob- prolongs the node lifetime. However, in the CoRSPR scheme,
lem by traveling the packet through multi-path. In cooperative the source node selects the destination node along with a
routing, the source node broadcasts the information packets. single relay node for cooperation. The two copies of data
The desired information follows multiple paths to reach the packets are combined by using a fixed ratio combine (FRC)
sink node. Due to the cooperation, the various number of as a diversity technique at the destination, and forwards
relay and destination nodes are contributed during the packet an optimal packet towards the super-sink by following the
forwarding process. This ensures maximum information to multi-hop path. For both the schemes, the selection param-
the sink node and reduces the probability of packet drop. eters lowest distance and the network division reduces the
Cooperative routing has two types: fixed relaying coopera- path length, which ensures the quick delivery of information
tion (FRC) and incremental relaying cooperation (IRC) [7]. packet. In order to increase the accuracy, the source node
In the FRC scheme, the relay node always used cooperation in checks each link SNR and forwards the packet over that link,
data forwarding, Whereas in IRC, the relay node cooperates which has the highest SNR. Moreover, due to the balance
only when received a request from the destination node. network, the proposed schemes avoid the early death of the
The FRC scheme has further two sub-schemes, e.g. amplify lowest depth node and reduce the packet collision.
and transmit (AT) and decode and transmit (DT) [8]. In AT,
the relay node first amplifies the received information and A. PROBLEM STATEMENT
then forward towards the destination node. While in DT In the DBR scheme [12], only depth information is con-
scheme, the relay node decodes the received information and sidered for the data advancement node. This information is
transmits it in the direction of the destination node. not enough to specify the position of the nodes. Moreover,
In non-cooperative routing protocols [9], [10], the packets the situation becomes more worst when two nodes are at the
travel from the source node to the destination node over a same depth (due to random deployment) and forwards the
single channel, which does not guarantee reliable data deliv- redundant information towards the sink node. The redundant
ery, due to the high probability of error in the channel. There- data is received by the destination node in case of the same
fore, the cooperative routing overcomes challenges that exist depth position. It increases the energy consumption and put
in the non-cooperative routing. However, the cooperative an extra burden on the lowest depth nodes due to continuous
routing consumes more energy than that of non-cooperative usage. Secondly, the data packets are advanced from the
routing, as the maximum number of nodes involved in data bottom source node towards the upper surface sink node by
delivery. This makes the network stability less than that of following the long transmission path, which increases the
non-cooperative networks [11]. latency. Moreover, the CoDBR [11] scheme also selects the
Several routing schemes [11]–[13] take only the informa- best forwarder nodes (relay and destination) by considering
tion about the depth of nodes into account for data deliv- the same criteria. The contribution of two relay nodes with
ery instead of the coordinates of the sensor node. In such destination increases the node contribution during the packet
schemes, only the lowest depth node is considered as the advancement, which also increases the energy consumption.
best candidate for the delivery of the packets from the water The deployed sensor nodes are energy-constrained and are
bottom to the water surface. The uppermost nodes have low considered dead when drained its battery power. Unlike the
depth in the network. Therefore, these nodes are selected DBR scheme, it also forwards the packet over a long trans-
frequently which has a high burden and, hence, tend to die mission path and increases the burden on the lowest depth
quickly than the rest of the nodes. The death of the uppermost nodes. In short, the scheme also consumes high energy and
creates holes that reduce the stability of the networks. render long latency during the packet advancement.
This work presents two routing schemes; (1) Reliable and
short path routing (RSPR) scheme for network stability, and B. CONTRIBUTIONS
(2) cooperative reliable short path routing (CoRSPR) for To cope up with the above problems in both the schemes,
network reliability. The RSPR is a non-cooperative scheme we have proposed two new schemes. The main features of
which forwards the information packet over a single path, the proposed schemes can be summarized as follows.
while the CoRSPR is a cooperative based scheme. For the • To reduce energy consumption and prolong the network
selection of optimal destination node, both schemes con- lifespan, the RSPR scheme is introduced. In this scheme,
sidered the weighting function of highest residual energy, we split the network into two sub-regions. The sub-sinks
highest SNR, lowest distance and bit error rate (BER). The is placed fixed at the mid of the network, while the
network of the proposed schemes is region-based, where the two super-sinks are position at the top of the water
two sub-sinks are placed at the middle of the network at surface. The source node considers the weighting func-
equal distances and super-sinks are positioned at the upper tion parameters (highest residual energy, SNR, lowest
water surface. In both the proposed schemes, the source node distance, and least number of hops) for the choice of
collects all the information in terms of weighting function data forwarding node. In addition, a Dth is applied,
parameters surrounding the neighbor nodes and forwards it which also reduces the energy consumption by making

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an isolate queue among the neighbor within the commu- In order to minimize the propagation delay, the dis-
nication range. The sub-sink placement at a particular tance Ds,d is reduced by dividing the network into two
position in the network reduces the path length, which sub-regions and placed the sub-sink nodes in the middle
minimizes the latency. The weighting function helps to of the network. Secondly, the selection parameter lowers
select that node as the best forwarder node, which has distance and reduces the path length, which results in
maximum function value. By using such a technique, small latency.
the scheme saves the network energy, retain maximum
nodes alive for a long time, and minimize the latency. II. LITERATURE REVIEW
However, due to single-path routing, it decreases the In UWSNs, for efficient energy and delay minimization,
network reliability and loss of the packet. the authors proposed a new scheme in [14]. This scheme
• To cope with the reliability problem in RSPR schemes, aims to enhance the performance of the vector base forward-
cooperation is utilized in the CoRSPR scheme. For the ing (VBF) by using the fuzzy logic interference technique
same network, the selection of relay and destination (FLIT). The scheme considers the position of the node and the
nodes are planted over the function parameters. Where information of the highest residual energy for the choice of
the destination is the first highest priority node, while the the best relay node. In addition, the FLIT reduces the interfer-
relay is the second highest function value node. Besides ence between the nodes, where the packet follows the shortest
this, a Dth is also applied in the forwarding mechanism path to reach the desire sink node. The selection parameter
among the neighbor nodes. A single relay node coop- residual energy helps to find the robust node for data for-
erates with destination, which decreases the energy of warding, which transfers maximum information over the low
nodes due to the small number of nodes contributing cost of energy. The scheme loses the network reliability due
to the packet advancement. Due to multi-path routing to single-path routing, and also loss maximum information
and the selection of a robust function by considering packets. However, it reduces per node energy, maximizes the
the weighting function, the source node selects the best network lifespan and reduces the latency between the sender
nodes as a relay and destination. The nodes in the com- and receiver.
munication range of sub-sink or super-sink send directly The reduction of the energy consumption and forwarding
packet towards it. Multi-hoping phenomena is utilized maximum information along with the small latency are the
due to the limited transmission range of the deployed benefits of the scheme [15]. To analyze the under-sea param-
nodes. eters, e.g, dissolved oxygen, PH level and water salinity,
• For end-to-end delay minimization, the broadcast time the scheme uses two techniques during packet transmission.
is assumed into three stages. The first stage is the trans- The nodes in the communication range use the regular packet,
mitting and receiving time, which is the time seized by while the nodes outside the communication range use emer-
the whole packet from the transmitter to the receiver over gency packets. The best relay node is selected by considering
the channel. It is the function of the transmission rate and the source identifier and the least number of hops. The param-
packet size. The second stage deals with the propagation eter source identifier helps to hold the receiver node address.
time, which is dependent on the speed of the acoustic The scheme saves the network energy and reduces the latency,
wave in the acoustic background while the third one is while drops maximum packet due to the single path routing.
the alignment time, which is considered the time taken The authors in [16] presents a method to avoid the void
of a node when it waits for particular condition in the spaces occupancy and reduced the network energy along
network. The delay among the source s and destination with a small delay. The scheme considers the robust function
node d is denoted by τs,d and can be calculated as, for efficient energy by ignoring the non-contributed node
in the network. The data forwarding nodes are selected by
τs,d = Ts + Ps,d + As (1)
taking the function of nodes ID and lowest distance. The
The transmitting and receiving time is denoted by Ts , selection parameter, smallest distance concerning the sink
the propagation time is Ps,d and the alignment time node, reduces the path length and the latency, while node ID
is presented by As . Therefore, As the transmitting and distinguished the node location among the neighbor nodes.
receiving time consider the function of packet size PS, Moreover, due to the multi-layered scheme, it enhances the
and the transmission rate Rs then, function and helps to discover the efficient route for data
PS advancement. The use of the splice function enables the
Ts = (2) source node to select the node having the greatest energy,
Rs
which improves the network life span. The scheme saves the
Moreover, the propagation time Ps,d from source s
energy along with a small latency but loses the reliability and
towards the destination d depends on the distance Ds,d
drops maximum information.
among the source node and the destination, while V is
Another cooperative scheme for UWSNs is presented
the speed of the acoustic wave in the ocean environment.
in [17]. The scheme uses two techniques for routing,
Ds,d i.e, effective routing, and reactive routing. The effective rout-
Ps,d = (3)
V ing is a non-cooperative routing, which forwards the packets

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over a single path. Such routing decreases the network reli- a sector-shaped network is considered in which a sink node
ability, while increases the latency due to the early death of is deployed at the mid of each layer. Each layer is shaped like
the lowest depth nodes. To address this issue the scheme uses a ring and with a constant width. This sink node is capable
the reactive technique, where packet advancement involves of finding the optimal distribution of the cluster head by
multi-path routing. In the scheme, each node creates a routing using the criterion. The rotation of cluster heads as distributed
table which holds the multiple routes information in the by the sink consume more energy. Therefore, the ECGD
direction of the destination, the table is updated after some algorithm is designed to improve the energy efficiency of the
time. The source node broadcasts the packet and examines the network. The simulations reveal that this approach achieves
channel link if one path is busy, it immediately chooses the good results for energy efficiency and network lifespan.
alternate path for the packet. The scheme reduces the latency RAHMAN [Link] introduced a cooperative routing algo-
due to this mechanism and consumes low energy. However, rithm for efficient energy and network reliability for
it has no mechanism to check the accuracy of the received UWSNs [22]. In the scheme, the source node initially selects
information. a bent of data forwarder nodes in the communication range
A non-cooperative routing algorithm in [18] for underwa- instead of a single data forwarder node. The local information
ter WSNs aims to avoid the interference between neighbors. of the node in terms of lowest depth and the residual energy of
The scheme sounds good, only having the information of each node is used for the selection of data forwarder nodes.
the lowest depth and minimum neighbor nodes informa- By considering the technique of the packet delivery proba-
tion, instead of full-dimensional channel information. The bility (PDP) and the ratio of energy consumption, a fuzzy
selection of the best destination node is based on function logic-based technique is used to find the optimal relay from
parameters, which reduces energy consumption and avoid the set of relay nodes. In addition, the scheme described,
collision between the nodes. The parameter minimum num- that most of the energy is lost due to the collision between
ber of neighbor nodes minimizes the ratio of nodes con- the nodes. To avoid such issues, the scheme used a timer
tribution in data advancement, which decreases the energy base schedule for data forwarding towards the sink node,
consumption. The scheme reduces network energy consump- which also reduces the network energy. At the destination,
tion, and retain the maximum nodes alive for a longer time the multiple packets are combined through a diversity scheme
and improves network reliability. However, it renders high and forward an optimal packet in the direction of the sink. The
delay during the packet forwarding due to following the long scheme improves the link quality, minimize the ratio of packet
transmission path and loss the information accuracy. drops. However, it loses information accuracy and consumes
Wang et al. [19] proposed an energy-efficient compressive high energy due to cooperation.
sensing-based clustering routing (EECSR) for wireless sen- For localization and network reliability, the authors pro-
sor networks (WSN). In this algorithm, the overall network is posed both the cooperative and non-cooperative routing
divided into k-layers, whereas the sink node is deployed at the schemes in [8]. For the network coverage, the scheme
center of each layer. The sink node obtains the clusters in each used the mobile sink nodes, which are responsible to
layer in which the optimal cluster is targeted. Furthermore, receive the packet from the deployed sensor nodes. In the
the sink node transmits the cluster-head information among non-cooperative scheme, to localize the un-localized nodes in
all members of the network. Furthermore, compressive sens- the network, the mobile sink uses a global positioning system
ing theory data collecting is divided into two types which are (GPS). This technique increases the network coverage and
intra-cluster and inter-cluster data collections. The simulation minimizes the localization error in the network. Moreover, for
demonstrated that this approach achieves good results in network reliability, a cooperative scheme is applied, which
improving energy efficiency and network lifespan. improves the link quality. For both the schemes, the nomi-
In [20], a game theory-based clustering scheme for wire- nation of the best data carrier node is based on the function
less sensor networks is proposed. This approach is based on of residual energy, SNR, and the lowest depth information.
localization in which each all the nodes initially transmit the The cooperative scheme travels the packet over the multi-path
hello message to the sink node which is deployed at the center instead of a single path, which enhances the link quality. The
of the network. The hello message contains the information: scheme prolongs the network lifetime, improves reliability
node ID and residual energy. A sink node defined a threshold and throughput. However, it renders high latency and reduces
by which the residual energy of all the nodes is sorted out. the data accuracy.
Also, it acknowledges all the nodes in response to residual To enhance the network reliability and reduce the energy
energy. Furthermore, to rotate the role of cluster head (CH), consumption the authors proposed a cooperative routing algo-
a sink node defined a circle T in the message. All the nodes are rithm for UWSNs [23]. In the scheme, the selection of data
classified into different classes as per their residual energy. forwarder nodes is based on the weighting function in terms
This approach achieves good results for energy balancing and of maximum remaining energy, maximum SNR and the low-
energy conservation. est depth information. A single relay node is considered with
The authors in [21] proposed a clustering algorithm for the destination for the sack of multi-path routing. The whole
wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to improve energy effi- network is splitted into four equal sub-zones and deployed
ciency and energy balance in a network. In this approach, nodes randomly in the ocean environment. The source node

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TABLE 1. Overview of the existing non-cooperative schemes.

transmits the information toward both the relay and the des- broadcast nature. The reason for the relay node nearest to
tination node simultaneously. In the case of the high BER, the destination node reduces the distance, which results to
the destination node sends a REQ towards the relay node, reduce the network energy. The destination node combines
while the relay node responds over the destination REQ with the multiple packets by using the diversity technique (MRC)
an ACK. The multiple packets are received by the destination and advance an optimal packet towards the sink node. The
node are merged through the FRC technique, and forwards an scheme maximizes the throughput and reduces the ratio of
optimal packet towards the surface sink node. The constraint packet drops. However, due to multiple nodes involving in
that the sensor nodes have limited communication range, the packet advancement, it consumes high energy and nodes
the scheme uses multi-hoping. The scheme increases the die quickly.
reliability, reduces the ratio of packet drop and minimizes the In [25] the authors proposed a new scheme for underwater
latency with the loss of maximum energy consumption. WSNs. The scheme reduces the latency and saves energy
The authors in [24] aim to enhance the performance of the by forwarding the packet in the network diagonally. Due to
energy-efficient depth base routing scheme (EEDBR). The such an assumption, it reduces the contribution of the nodes,
scheme deals with the lowest depth and the maximum resid- which results in the reduction of energy consumption. The
ual energy for the choice of the best forwarder nodes. In order, data forwarder node is selected by considering the lowest
to improve the network reliability, it forwards the packets depth information. The scheme defines the flooding zone
into multi-path routing. The re-transmission phenomena are in the network by setting the criteria θ = 90 ± 10K ,
utilized, in case of best forwarder node received the cor- which helps to prevent the flooding region in the network.
rupted data packet. The source node transmits the packet In order to broadcast the information in the direction of the
to the relay and destination node simultaneously due to the sink, the scheme increases the ±K value which increases

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TABLE 2. Overview of the existing cooperative schemes.

the flooding area and packet reached to the sink node. The from the source it increases the spreading loss, which reduces
random variable K defines energy consumption and latency its energy. The spreading geometry is denoted by k, and it’s
during the packet forwarding. The scheme decreases energy values are calculated for spherical spreading k = 1 and
consumption and latency. However, it reduces the link quality for cylindrical spreading k = 2. By using the empirical
and drops maximum information. relationship in [26], the absorption coefficient in dB/Km can
be calculated as.
III. CHANNEL MODEL 2
0.11f 44f 2 2.75f 2
Consider two sensor nodes communicating with each other 10 log α(f ) = + + +0.003[dB/Km]
through the acoustic link by using the non-coherent binary 1+f 2 4100+f 2 104
frequency shift keying (BFSK). To assume that, the trains (5)
of M packets are encoded into N ≥ M packets and for- The above equation describes the attenuation of the acous-
ward over the acoustics link using fountain codes. The group tic wave in the acoustic channel. The absorption and the
of the packets is subjected to path loss and path noise. transmission losses are the fundamental losses associated
Besides, the model of fading is involved by considering the with the acoustic channel, causing attenuation. The reflection
K-distributions. In the acoustic channel, the channel model of the acoustic wave from the water surface or bottom also
deals with the transmission of one-bit information by con- loss the acoustic energy. The amount of energy loss due to the
sidering, the energy consumption, the transmission rate, reflection of water surface at incident angle θ towards hori-
the attenuation, noise, and fading. zontally is denoted by ERs and can be modeled empirically
as [27].
A. ATTENUATION, NOISE, AND FADING
1+(f /f12 )
   
The path loss in the acoustic WSNs communication depends ERs = 10 log − 1+(90−ω)/60 (θ/30)2 (6)
on the energy loss. The parameters, distance, frequency 1+(f /f22 )
and the available bandwidth of the acoustic communication The subscripts s in the above equation indicates the water
√
increase the path loss. The attenuation in dB is calculated by surface, where the value of f1 = 10f2 and f2 = 378/ω2 .
using the Thorp’s formula [26]. Similarly the energy loss due to the reflection of water bottom
10 log A(d, f ) = k10 log(d) + d10 log(α(f )) (4) is denoted as ERb and is modeled as [28].
2
(m sin θ1 − (n2 − cos2 θ1 )1/2 )

The above equation shows that the combination of the absorp- ERb = 10 log (7)
tion loss and the spreading loss creates the underwater m sin θ1 − (n2 − cos2 θ1 )1/2 )
attenuation, where the absorption coefficient is denoted by ρ1 c1
m= n= (8)
log(α(f )). Moreover, when the acoustic signal moves away ρ2 c2

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In above model the subscripts b indicates the water bottom, TABLE 3. Available bandwidth for different transmission ranges.
where ρ1 is the water density before the reflection and ρ2 is
the water sediment density after reflection. While c1 is the
speed of the acoustic wave before reflection from the water
surface and c2 denoted the speed of the wave after reflection.
In addition to model the K-distribution fading of the acous-
tic channel, whose probability distribution function (PDF) is
given by [29].
 ν  
4 x 2x
fx = √ √ Kν−1 √ (9) it needs the source node transmitted power. Which can be
αŴ(υ) α α calculated as.
The parameters ν and α denotes the shape and the scale
PTs = 2π × 1m × H × SI (14)
respectively, Kν−1 shows the improved Bessel function of the
ν − 1 order and Ŵ(ν) is the Gamma function. In deep water for the same SI the source transmitted energy
In order to calculate the K-distribution fading for is given as below.
a non-coded transmitted signal, while considering the
non-coherent BFSK modulation is given in [30] and PTs = 2π × (1m)2 × H × SI (15)
model as. where s presents the distance values with respect to the
Z ∞ ν−1 −u
ν u e source, and H shows the the sea depth.
Pb (γ̄ ) = du (10)
Ŵ(ν) 0 2ν + u Eb
N (f )
C. ACOUSTIC WAVE SPEED
γ̄
where energy per bit is denoted by Eb = Rb , while Rb is the In the underwater acoustic channel, the contrary channel
bit rate. effects (fading, noise, and attenuation) reduces the speed of
the acoustic wave. Especially the water temperature Tw , water
B. ACOUSTIC WAVE ENERGY CONSUMPTION salinity Sw and the water depth Dw varies the speed of the
In underwater communication, the transmission of informa- acoustic wave ν. The acoustic wave speed is emphatically
tion is set among the transmitter and the receiver by using derived by using these parameters as below [32].
the acoustic wave. The passive sonar equation is utilized to
v = 1449 + 4.591Tw − 5.304 × 10−2 Tw2 + 2.374 × 10−4 Tw3
characterize the energy consumption of such modems. The
equation of energy consumption for modeling the SNR in dB + 1.34(Sw − 35) + 1.63 × 10−2 Dw + 1.675 × 10−7 Dw
is given below [28]. + 1.025 × 10−2 Tw (Sw − 35) − 7.139 × 10−3 Tw D−3
w
SNR = Sr L − Tx L − Nl + DI ≥ DTh (11) The underwater acoustic signal is affected by the higher prop-
In the above equation Sr L indicates the source level, and agation delay as compared to terrestrial communication. The
Tx L is considered the transmission loss. While DI and Nl reason is the slow propagation speed of the acoustic signal in
shows the directivity index (in the case of omnidirectional, the acoustic channel than the radio wave. By using the above
it is considered zero) and the noise level, while DTh shows empirical equation, the acoustic speed can be calculated in
the specified threshold. The above equation shows that at such condition when the temperature is 0 to 30 C o range,
the receiver, the transmitted signal can be detected by the the depth between the 0 and 8000 m, and salinity in the range
acoustic modem, and the SNR of the acoustic signal should be of 30 to 40 ppt.
equal or higher than the specified threshold. At the receiver,
D. BANDWIDTH AND TRANSMISSION RANGE
the acoustic wave intensity is presented by the source level.
The noise level and the transmission loss bend the acoustic For long-distance of hundreds of k/M coverage range having
signal intensity weaken when it moves away from the source. a small bandwidth of few kHz, while for short-range of sev-
The source level Sr L in terms of signal intensity SI , when it is eral meters may need a high bandwidth of hundred kHz. In a
1m away with respect to the source can be calculated as [31]. given time slot, the bandwidth is considered the maximum
data which can be broadcasted in the channel. For various
SI
Sr L = 10 log (12) applications and different transmission ranges, the limits of
1µpa the bandwidth are different. In general, the 100m or less
where µpa considers the standard reference in the acoustic than 100m transmission range uses the maximum available
communication and it’s value is 0.67 × 10−18 watt/m2 . The bandwidth. And for long-distance transmission range, such
signal intensity of SI can be written as. as mining detection and ocean, smaller bandwidth is used.
SI = 10Sr L/10 × 0.67 × 10−18 (13)
IV. PROPOSED SCHEMES
The above equation shows that in shallow water, when the This section contains the complete description of the both
SI is positioned at 1 m distance away from the source node, proposed RSPR and CoRSPR schemes for acoustic WSNs.

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A. RELIABLE SHORT-PATH ROUTING (RSPR) SCHEME using the equation given below.
1) NETWORK MODEL    
The network model depends on node capacity, network reli- max (ρ(ds,dsn , f )), (ρ(ddsn,sk , f )) × max(RE)
ability, and network energy consumption. For the proposed Wf =     (16)
schemes, the network is branched into two sub-regions, min |ds,dsn |2 , |ddsn,sk |2 ×min NH
where the cross-sectional area is considered 500 meter in each
direction. The deployment of the sensor nodes is considered where the subscript s, dsn and sk indicates the source node,
randomly in each sub-region and each node has the sensing destination node, and sink node respectively. ρ(ds,dsn , f ) and
capability. The position of the two super-sinks is accom- ρ(ddsn,sk , f ) are the SNR of the identical source to destination
plished at the upper water surface, while the two sub-sink are and destination to sink node, while NH is the number of
placed at the mid-region with the same distance. The sensor hops. For simplicity, residual energy of each node is presented
node communicates with each other, sub-sinks and the upper as RE and the corresponding path distances are denoted as
super-sinks by using an acoustic wave. The super-sink nodes |ds,dsn |2 and |ddsn,sk |2 respectively. The Euclidean distance of
are considered the hybrid, which has the capability to commu- each path can be calculated as,
nicate with the sensor node by using the acoustic link and with q
the offshore data center through the radio link. As the sensor ds,dsn = (xs −xdsn )2 +(ys −ydsn )2 +(zs −zdsn )2
nodes have a short transmission range, multi-hoping is used to q
cover the whole network. To save energy, it is assumed that ddsn,sk = (xdsn −xsk )2 +(ydsn −ysk )2 +(zdsn −zsk )2 (17)
the nodes nearest with respect to the super-sink send direct
information. The sensed data is first gathered by the sub-sink In above x, y and z shows the spatial coordinates. By con-
and then forward it toward the upper super-sink nodes. The sidering the above weighting function each node creates a
network model is presented in Figure 1. routing table and broadcasts it among the neighbor nodes in
the transmission range. The nodes which receive a packet,
wait for a certain interval of time (which is proportional to the
processing and propagation delay in acoustic WSNs commu-
nication) to receive a reply. During the specified interval of
time, if the desired node does not receive any reply, it sends
the control packet again. The size of the control packet is
specified 10 bytes which is broadcasted after some time for
the sack of neighbor updating about the changing condition
of the network.

3) OPTIMAL RELAY CHOSEN AND DATA TRANSITION

This phase describes the selection of data forwarder node
and information transition towards the sub-sink and then
the super-sink. In the proposed RSPR scheme, the selec-
tion of best forwarder nodes is based on the weighting
function parameters, i.e, highest residual energy, SNR, and
lowest distance and the number of hops. After the control
FIGURE 1. The proposed network model of RSPR.
packet exchanging among the neighbor nodes, the source
node stored all the neighbor nodes information in the routing
table. The source senses the desired information and for-
2) NEIGHBOR IDENTIFICATION wards it towards the data forwarder node. In the transmission
After the random deployment of the sensor nodes, the nodes range, the node which has the highest residual energy, max-
do not have any information about the neighbors in the imum SNR value, lowest distance and the minimum number
transmission range. A control packet is broadcasted by each of hops is considered the destination nodes. In addition,
node among the neighbor nodes to make the entire network a Dth as shown in Figure 2 is applied in the transmission
sensor node aware. The exchange of control packet keeps the range forwarding mechanism to choose the finest data for-
nodes updated about the information of the highest residual warder node for packet transition. The weighting function
energy, highest SNR, lowest distance and the minimum num- parameters help to select the robust node and the improved
ber of hops. Due to the exchange of control packet nodes link for packet transition. Moreover, the distance and least
identified its neighbor in the communication range. A depth number of neighbors reduce the path length and packet con-
threshold (Dth) is applied, where each node retains its isolate gestion, which minimizes the interference. The destination
queue of neighbor and finds an optimal node for packet node received the information packet and checks the associ-
transmission. The function value is calculated for each node ated BER. In the case of BER exceeds the threshold value,

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FIGURE 3. RSPR scheme data forwarding.

B. COOPERATIVE RELIABLE SHORT-PATH

ROUTING (CoRSPR) SCHEME
FIGURE 2. Depth threshold with single link. 1) RELAY AND DESTINATION NODE SELECTION
The source node in the CoRSPR scheme forwards the data
packet after knowing the desired information among the
it discards the packet and waits for a certain interval of neighbor nodes. The source node at each region transmits
time to receive the second packet. The source node selects the information packet directly to the nearest sub-sink node
the second route, if one route is busy, having low SNR or if it lies inside the communication range. Moreover, if the
maximum neighbor nodes exist. However, if the BER is sub-sink does not exist in the communication range, then
less than the threshold, the destination accepts the packet the source node chose the most optimal nodes, which trans-
and checks the sub-sink vicinity. It directly transmits the mits further the information toward the sub-sink node. The
information packet towards the sub-sink, contingent upon the selection of best destination nodes is based on the highest
sub-sink lie in the destination node communication range. residual energy, highest SNR, lowest distance and the mini-
Multi-hoping is used due to the limited range of the des- mum number of the neighbor in the transmission range. In the
tination node. The sub-sink nodes accept the information communication range, each node calculates the following
packet and forward it towards the upper super-sink node, function for the control packet which is exchanged among
which processes the packet further towards the offshore data the neighbor (18), shown at the bottom of this page, where
center. (ρ(ds,r , f ) is the corresponding path SNR from the source
The scenario of the proposed RSPR single link scheme towards the relay, while |ds,r |2 shows the distance between
is shown in Figure 3, wherein each sub-region the robust the source and the relay node. The source node collects the
data forwarder node is selected by considering the weighting information in terms of weighted function and stores it into
function parameters. The scheme minimizes the network the routing table. The neighbor node in the communication
energy by using a Dth in parallel with the highest residual range, which has the highest function value is considered
energy, which keeps maximum nodes alive for a long time. as the destination node. It is also given the highest prior-
The selection parameter maximum SNR helps for the best ity node for packet transition. For cooperation, the second-
link selection, while the lowest distance reduces the packet highest function values node is known as the relay node.
transmission path and renders a small latency. The data for- In the proposed scheme a single relay node is considered with
warder node, by considering the minimal neighbor nodes, the destination. Instead of multiple relay nodes, the single
avoids the collision and interference and also saves the net- relay node reduces the ratio of nodes contribution during the
work energy. packet advancement, which reduces the energy consumption.

   
max (ρ(ds,dsn , f )), (ρ(ds,r , f )), (ρ(dr,sk , f )) × max(RE)
Wf =     (18)
2 2 2
min |ds,dsn | , |ds,r | , |dr,sk | × min NH

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FIGURE 5. Depth threshold for cooperative routing.

packet further. During the holding time, it discards the other

packet received from the neighbor nodes or through a direct
link from the source node. In the proposed Cooperative RSPR
scheme the delay is minimized by dividing the network into
two sub-regions. The selection parameter minimum distance
also ensures quick communication. The selection parameter
highest SNR improves the link quality and the minimum
neighbor nodes reduce the interference and packet congestion
as shown in Figure 6.

FIGURE 4. Flow chart of the RSPR and CoRSPR schemes.

The nodes in each zone having the same value of the function FIGURE 6. CoRSPR scheme data forwarding.

but have unique IDs discriminates the destination node posi-

tion. Besides this, a Dth is applied in the packet advancement
during the cooperation, which helps to hold a separate link 2) DATA ADVANCEMENT AND COOPERATION
among the neighbor nodes. In this phase, the destination and the relay node receives
As displayed in Figure 5, the source node selects the the information packet simultaneously form the source node.
node 4 is a destination and node 3 is a relay node instead At the destination, it checks the associated BER and accept
of node 5 and 6. By using such a mechanism, it mini- the packet and acknowledge (ACK) the source node, if BER is
mizes energy consumption and improves the network life less than the threshold value. However, if the BER exceeds the
span. When the relay node received the information packet threshold value, the destination node sends a request (REQ)
it waits for specified holding time before forwarding the towards the relay node. The relay node responds over the

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FIGURE 7. REQ and ACK technique.

destination REQ and sends an ACK also towards the desti- be calculated as [33],
nation node. The relay node does not send the packet to the p
ysd = T h + nsd (f ) (19)
destination node without receiving any REQ from the desti- p s sd
nation. The scenario of ACK and REQ is shown in Figure 7. ysr = Ts hsr + nsr (f ) (20)
The relay cooperates in such a case, in which it receives the
In the above equations, ysd and ysr are the received packet
REQ signal from the destination node. After securing the
at the relay and the destination nodes respectively. Ts is the
two packets, the destination node combines these two packets
original transmitted signal, while hsd and hsr are the cor-
through a diversity technique. An optimal packet is received
responding link gain. The noise of certain paths is denoted
by the sub-sink, in case it lies inside the communication range
by nsd and nsr which are considered the channel coefficient.
of the destination. Otherwise, multi-hoping is used to forward
These channel coefficients are modeled as a Gaussian random
the packets first towards the sub-sink and then the super-sink
variable having σ 2 variance and zero mean. The σ 2 can be
at the water surface.
modeled in [34],
σ 2 = ηdsd
−α
(21)
where dsd denoted the distance between the source and the
destination node, η is a constant factor which is dependent on
the propagation, while α is denoted the propagation loss.
In the second state, the relay node responds over the
destination REQ and amplifies the packet by multiplying a
constant term β with the signal. The β can be modeled as [34],
s
Tr
β= (22)
Ts |hsr |2 + σ 2
FIGURE 8. Scenario of multiple packet forwarding. In above Ts is the source signal and Tr is the receiver signal,
while hsr considers the path characteristic from the source
A single relay cooperation scheme is shown in Figure 8, towards the relay node. The received signal at destination
where two state scheme is considered for data advancement forwarded by the source node can be modeled as [33],
among the source, the relay, and the destination node. The p
yrd = β Tr hrd + nrd (f ) (23)
scheme ensures non-overlapping transmission in the queue,
which is done in two states. In-state first, the source node s where hrd is the source to the destination link gain and
forwards the packet towards the relay r and the destination nrd is the associated noise of the desired path. The two
d node simultaneously due to the broadcast nature. While in received packets are combined by using a diversity scheme
the second state, the relay node advances the packet towards and forwards an optimal packet towards the sub-sink and
the destination node in a certain condition. In the first state, then the super-sink towards the water surface. The super-sink
the packet received by the destination and the relay node can extracts the desire information and forwards the packet in the

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direction of the offshore data center for further processing. the CoRSPR schemes are compared with the DBR, CoDBR
The Flow chart is shown in Figure 4 defines the complete and ODBR [37] schemes. The reason behind this comparison
routing process for both RSPR and CoRSPR schemes. is that DBR, ODBR and RSPR schemes forward the data in a
non-cooperative manner. In order, for reliability, the CoDBR
3) DIVERSITY TECHNIQUES and the CoRSPR schemes used multi-path routing for data
In the proposed CoRSPR scheme, instead of MRC, the fixed advancement. To average the simulation results, 100 rounds
ratio combine (FRC) is used as a diversity strategy. In order, are considered due to the fluctuating in each scheme after
to enhance the channel aspects and reduce the effects of 100 rounds. The parameters used for simulation are given in
the shadow zone and other adverse channel characteristics, the Table 4.
the FRC is just weighted with a constant ratio adding with
the incoming signal. Moreover, the MRC needs full channel TABLE 4. Parameters used for simulation.
state information (CSI). The FRC can be expressed as below
in case of a single relay with the destination.
yd = m1 ysd + m2 yrd (24)
In the above yd is the merged output packet of the destination
node, while m1 and m2 are the constant weights of the two
paths. These constant weights can be extended, in case of the
number of relay nodes extending, which are considered as
the ratio of channel coefficient and power function and can
be modeled in [35],
√
m1 Ts hsd
=√ (25)
m2 Tr hrd
In case of amplifying and forwarding an optimal ratio of the
weights constant are considered 2 : 1 and expressed as [33],
√
T s hsd
m1 = (26)
σ2
√ o
T r hrd
m2 = (27) A. TOTAL NUMBER OF DEAD NODES
σo2
The nodes which drain their battery power are considered
If a signal is broadcasted and considered its average energy
dead nodes. The comparison of all the schemes in terms of
of unity, then the SNR of the signal can be computed as [35],
dead nodes is plotted in Figure 9. The ratio of the dead nodes
Ts |hsd |2 + Tr |hrd |2 in the proposed RSPR scheme is lower than the rest of all
ρ= (28) the schemes. The reason behind this achievement is the min-
σo2
imum energy consumption in the RSPR scheme. Moreover,
V. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS the network of the RSPR scheme is split into two regions and
The realization of the proposed schemes RSPR and CoRSPR the placement of sub-sinks into the middle of the network
is accomplished by using the MATLAB 2018b. The total reduces the path length, which results in reducing energy
network area is considered 500-m in all directions, while consumption. In addition, the scheme uses the weighting
the total number of 250 nodes are deployed randomly at function parameters of the highest residual energy for the
different distances. The communication between the sensor choice of the destination node, which also helps to choose the
node is accomplished by using the acoustic Link Quest UWM robust node for packet advancement. The CoRSPR scheme
2000 modem [36]. Such a modem has a working depth also reduces the dead ratio due to assigning more energy to
of 200 m to 400 m, which is suitable for the proposed depth the lowest depth node as compare to the DBR, CoDBR and
of 500 m. The data rate is considered 9.6 kbps, while the ODBR schemes. Moreover, the proposed CoRSPR scheme
transmission power is 2 W, the reception power is 0.8 W and is a multi-path routing scheme, where data forwarder nodes
the idle power of the modem is 8 mW. The network is split cooperate with each other for packet advancement. Due to
into two sub-regions, where each node has a limited commu- region-based networks and the utilization of weighting func-
nication range of 100 m in all directions. Initially, the sensor tion, the CoRSPR also consumes low energy and reduces the
nodes in the network are energized with 10-J energy. The ratio of dead nodes. The DBR and ODBR is a single-path
capacity of the control packet is 50 bits while the data packet routing scheme, which considers only depth information and
size is considered 1600 bits. The total allowable bandwidth reduces the ratio of dead nodes due to low energy consump-
is 30 kHz. In a certain interval of time, if the channel is busy, tion. In the CoDBR scheme, two relay nodes are selected with
the sensor node drops the packet. The proposed RSPR and the destination by considering only depth information, which

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the routing. In the CoRSPR scheme, for the same network

as the RSPR scheme, and the usage of the robust function
parameters for the relay and the destination node selection are
key techniques to minimize the network energy. The contribu-
tion of cooperation among the single relay and the destination
node ensures maximum information at the super-sink node
with the cost of low energy consumption. The DBR and
ODBR schemes follow the long transmission path from the
bottom source to the upper sink node for packet advance-
ment. Due to the unbalanced network in these two schemes,
the nodes collide with each other and drain their battery
power quickly. The CoDBR scheme uses the cooperation of
two relay nodes with the destination which consume high
energy. Moreover, the multi-path routing by considering only
the lowest depth criteria in CoDBR scheme, it increases the
node interference and results in small energy left in the node
battery.
FIGURE 9. Total dead nodes of the network.
C. PACKETS ACCEPTANCE RATIO
The packet acceptance ratio (PAR) is the total number of
forwards the packet from the bottom to the upper sink node packets secured by the super-sink node. Figure 11 demon-
by following the long transmission path. Thus the scheme strates the comparison of all schemes in terms of PAR. The
consumes more energy and nodes die quickly. proposed scheme CoRSPR achieves the highest value of PAR
due to single relay cooperation with destination and short
B. ENERGY LEFT IN THE BATTERY transmission path. In addition, the selection of data forwarder
Energy left in the battery is also known as residual energy. nodes by considering the function parameters, the highest
The Figure 10 shows the plot of energy left in the battery of SNR also selects the robust link for data transmission. In the
all the schemes. The residual energy of the proposed RSPR scheme, the source node selects the link which has the highest
and CoRSPR schemes is much high than the DBR, CoDBR SNR and lowest distance from the sub-sink node, which
and ODBR schemes. The reason for the saving high energy ensures maximum information and quick delivery of the
in the RSPR scheme is the selection of an optimal destina- packet to the desired sink nodes. Moreover, from round 0 to
tion node by considering the weighing function parameter till round 200 the CoDBR scheme hold a maximum PAR
highest residual energy. Secondly, the scheme also reduces value than the RSPR, ODBR, and DBR schemes but lower
the interference and collision of the neighbor nodes, which than the CoRSPR scheme. The reason is that the CoDBR
also saves the node battery power. The division of the net- scheme forwards the data using the cooperation of two relay
work into two sub-regions keeps balancing the entire network nodes with the destination, which ensures maximum packet
energy and nodes uniformly consume its battery power during

FIGURE 10. Energy left in the battery. FIGURE 11. Packet acceptance ratio (PAR).

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TABLE 5. Dead nodes after equal interval of time.

TABLE 6. Energy left after equal interval of time.

transmission towards the super-sink nodes. However, after latency due to the placement of sub-sinks in the middle of
such rounds, the lowest depth nodes of the CoDBR scheme the network. In the scheme, the nodes close to the sub-sink
die quickly due to the burden of continuous data transmis- and super-sink directly sends the information towards it.
sion to the super-sink nodes. In such a scenario, the RSPR In addition, the propagation time is reduced by consider-
scheme copes the lowest depth node early dead by keeping the ing the lowest distance as the selection criteria for the data
network balance and secure the uniform data advancement forwarder nodes, which also reduced the latency. Moreover,
to the final destination. The DBR and ODBR schemes are the DBR scheme also renders the smallest latency, because it
single-path routing schemes that reduce the reliability and considers only the lowest information for the selection of data
drop maximum information. forwarder node, Secondly in DBR due to single-path routing
latency is reduced. The reason of small latency produced by
D. TOTAL END-TO-END DELAY the CoRSPR scheme is due to the cooperation of single relay
The comparison of all schemes in terms of end-to-end delay node with the destination. Moreover, the selection parameter
in seconds is depicted in Figure 12. The plot shows that the lowest distance and dividing the network into two sub-regions
proposed RSPR scheme yields a small delay as compared also reduce the latency in the CoRSPR scheme. The place-
to all the schemes. The DBR scheme is the second smallest ment of sub-sink nodes also ensures quick transmission of
latency scheme, while CoRSPR is the third scheme having packets toward the sub-sink node. In CoDBR scheme the
a small delay. In the RSPR scheme, the nodes forward the reason for long propagation delay is due to the cooperation of
data packet through single-path routing, which decreases the two relay nodes with the destination node. Secondly, the com-
munication of data packets from the bottom toward the upper
offshore data center also increases the latency. All the nodes
in ODBR scheme follows a single path for data transmission,
due to this the delay of the ODBR is high as compared to the
proposed schemes.

E. SUCCESSFULLY RECEIVED PACKETS AT THE SINK

The plot of the packets received successfully at the sink node
of all the schemes is presented in Figure 13. In CoRSPR
scheme, the ratio of successful packets secured by the sink
node are maximum than the rest of all the schemes. The rea-
son is that the CoRSPR scheme deals with the link quality by
checking the SNR value for the sack of the relay and the des-
tination choice. In addition, the replacement of two sub-sink
nodes at the middle of the network also ensures maximum
packets delivery to the sub-sink and then super-sink nodes.
During the routing, the robust function parameters for the
selection of data forwarder nodes help to chose those nodes
as the data forwarder nodes, which are good in all aspects
FIGURE 12. End-to-end delay in second. and delivers maximum packets towards the super-sink nodes.

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TABLE 7. Packet acceptance ratio after equal interval of time.

TABLE 8. Delay in seconds after equal interval of time.

TABLE 9. Packets received successfully at equal interval of time.

TABLE 10. Abbreviations used in the paper.

FIGURE 13. Packets received successfully.

Moreover, in the RSPR scheme, the same weighting function

parameter for the selection of destination node increases
the ratio of packet transmission. In RSPR scheme, maxi-
mum information is secured by the sub-sink node in behalf
of the short transmission path. While in CoDBR scheme,
the reason of minimum packet transmission is due to the long during the routing. This results in increasing the ratio of
transmission path and the early death of the lowest depth erroneous packets and discord maximum packets.
nodes, where maximum packets are dropped when there is
no neighbor exist in the communication range. The DBR and VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
ODBR schemes consider only depth criteria for destination In UWSNs, the attenuation and channel noise are the two
node selection, which is not enough to decide the link quality major constraints which affect the reliable delivery of data

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packets from the water bottom to the water surface. The [2] J. Qadar, A. Khan, and H. Mahmood, ‘‘DNAR: Depth and noise aware
underwater nodes possess very limited energy which dies routing for underwater wireless sensor networks,’’ in Proc. Conf. Com-
plex Intell. Softw. Intensive Syst., Cham, Switzerland, Springer, 2018.
quickly due to unbalanced load during data exchanging, pp. 240–251
which in turn reduces the network stability. This paper [3] S. Chafale, and N. Dhande, ‘‘Opportunistic routing and monitoring of
presents two routing techniques: RSPR and CoRSPR. First packet data in underwater wireless sensor network,’’ Tech. Rep. 2018.
[4] A. Davis, and H. Chang, ‘‘Underwater wireless sensor networks,’’ in Proc.
technique makes reliable communication, while second tech- Oceans, 2012, pp. 1–5.
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and applications for underwater sensor networking,’’ in Proc. IEEE Wire-
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multi-path routing algorithm, which increases the network depth-based routing protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks,’’ in
Proc. Int. Conf. Adv. Comput. Sci. Inf. Technol., Berlin, Germany, Springer,
reliability. For the same network and the same weighting 2011, pp. 223–234.
function, the CoRSPR scheme uses a single relay node with [11] H. Nasir, N. Javaid, H. Ashraf, S. Manzoor, Z. A. Khan, U. Qasim,
the destination. The source sends the packet towards the relay and M. Sher, ‘‘CoDBR: Cooperative depth based routing for underwater
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[15] S. Shetty, R. M. Pai, and M. M. M. Pai, ‘‘Energy efficient message prior-
are ensured due to the consideration of the highest SNR and ity based routing protocol for aquaculture applications using underwater
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[25] T. Ali, L. T. Jung, and I. Faye, ‘‘Diagonal and vertical routing protocol for MUHAMMAD IRFAN received the [Link]. degree
underwater wireless sensor network,’’ Proc.-Social Behav. Sci., vol. 129, in electrical engineering from the University of
pp. 372–379, May 2014. Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan,
[26] P. C. Etter, Underwater Acoustic Modeling and Simulation. Boca Raton, in 2013, and the M.S. degree in electrical
FL, USA: CRC Press, 2018. engineering from the Lahore University of Man-
[27] R. Coates, ‘‘An empirical formula for computing the beckmann-
agement Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan, in 2016,
spizzichino surface reflection loss coefficient,’’ IEEE Trans. Ultrason.,
Ferroelectr., Freq. Control, vol. UFFC-35, no. 4, pp. 522–523, Jul. 1988.
respectively. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D.
[28] R. J. Urick, Principles of Underwater Sound for Engineers. New York, NY, degree in electronic engineering with the City Uni-
USA: McGraw-Hill Education, 1967. versity of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. During his
[29] X. Geng, and A. Zielinski, ‘‘An eigenpath underwater acoustic commu- M.S. studies, he worked as a Teaching Assistant
nication channel model,’’ in Proc. Challenges Changing Global Environ. for two consecutive semesters at the Lahore University of Management
Conf. OCEANS’95 MTS/IEEE, vol. 2, Oct. 1995, pp. 1189–1196. Sciences. He has taught with the Department of Electrical Engineering,
[30] J. Yu, T. Gao, P. Cheng, and Y. Zhang, ‘‘Design of a dynamic multi- CECOS University of IT and Emerging Sciences, Peshawar. His research
target simulating system for active sonar,’’ in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Signal interests include FPGA-based digital systems designs, low power computer
Process. Commun. Comput. (ICSPCC), Sep. 2011, pp. 1–5. architectures, and memory design.
[31] H. Luo, Z. Guo, K. Wu, F. Hong, and Y. Feng, ‘‘Energy balanced strategies
for maximizing the lifetime of sparsely deployed underwater acoustic
sensor networks,’’ Sensors, vol. 9, no. 9, pp. 6626–6651, 2009.
[32] K. V. Mackenzie, ‘‘Nine term equation for sound speed in the oceans,’’
J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol. 70, no. 3, pp. 807–812, 1981.
[33] P. K. Chong, and D. Kim, ‘‘Surface-level path loss modeling for sensor
networks in flat and irregular terrain,’’ ACM Trans. Sensor Netw., vol. 9, JUNAID QADIR received the [Link]. degree in
no. 2, p. 15, 2013. electronics from the Department of Electronics,
[34] P. Wang, L. Zhang, and V. O. Li, ‘‘Asynchronous cooperative transmis- University of Peshawar, and the [Link]. degree
sion for three-dimensional underwater acoustic networks,’’ IET Commun., in electronics from Quaid-i-Azam University,
vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 286–294, 2013. Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2016 and 2019, respec-
[35] V. T. Vakily, and M. Jannati, ‘‘A new method to improve performance of tively. He was a Research Assistant during his
cooperative underwater acoustic wireless sensor networks via frequency [Link]. study. He has published many research
controlled transmission based on length of data links,’’ Wireless Sensor
articles in CISIS-2018, Kunibiki Messe, Matsue,
Netw., vol. 2, no. 5, p. 381, 2010.
[36] S. D. McPhail, ‘‘RRS discovery cruise 323, 19 Sep-03 Oct. 2007. First Japan, and MDPI-Energies, Switzerland. His cur-
deepwater trials of the autosub6000 AUV,’’ Tech. Rep., 2008. rent research interests include underwater wireless
[37] T. Ahmed, M. Chaudhary, M. Kaleem, and S. Nazir, ‘‘Optimized depth- sensor networks, wireless sensor networks, the Internet of Things, mobile
based routing protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks,’’ in edge computing, and cloud computing. He is a Reviewer of IEEE ACCESS,
Proc. Int. Conf. Open Source Syst. & Technol. (ICOSST), Dec. 2016, the Journal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences
pp. 147–150. (ELSEVIER), the Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine
(ELSEVIER), and Acta Acustica united with Acustica - the Journal of the
European Acoustics Association (EAA).

UBAID ULLAH received the [Link]. degree in

electronics from the Department of Electronics,
University of Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2016, and
the [Link]. degree in electronics from the Depart- MEHMOOD NAWAZ received the B.S. degree
ment of Electronics, Quaid-i-Azam University, from Baha-uddin-Zakariya University, Pakistan,
Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2018. His current research in 2012, and the [Link]. degree from Shanghai Jiao-
interests include underwater wireless sensor net- tong University, China, in 2017. He is currently a
works (UWSNs), terrestrial wireless sensor net- Ph.D. Scholar with the Department of Electrical
works (TWSNs), signal processing, and image Engineering, City University of Hong Kong. His
processing. He has also served as a Reviewer for research interests include image processing, graph
the ‘‘Journal of Supercomputing’’ (Springer) and the ‘‘Journal of Taibah matching, pattern recognition, and facial expres-
University Medical Sciences (ELSEVIER). sion analysis.

ALI RAZA SHAHID received the B.S. degree in

computer engineering from the COMSATS Insti-
tute of Information Technology (CIIT) Islamabad, RIZWAN QURESHI received the bachelor’s
Pakistan, in 2010, and the M.S. degree in elec- degree in electronic engineering from the Mehran
trical engineering from CIIT Islamabad, in 2015. University of Engineering and Technology,
He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in elec- Jamshoro, in 2010, and the [Link]. degree in elec-
tronic engineering with the City University of trical engineering from the Institute of Space
Hong Kong. Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2015. He is
From 2011 to 2015, he was a Research Asso- currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in elec-
ciate with the Electrical Engineering Department, trical engineering with the City University of
CIIT Islamabad, Pakistan, where he has served as a Lecturer. His research Hong Kong. Before joining City University, he was
interests include biometrics, magnetic resonance imaging, and computer a Lecturer with the Electrical Engineering Depart-
vision. ment, COMSATS University Islamabad, Wah Campus, Pakistan. His
Mr. Shahid is a member of the International Society for Magnetic Res- research interests include bioinformatics, computer vision, signal and image
onance in Medicine (ISMRM) and the European Society for Magnetic processing, energy management, and spectral imaging.
Resonance in Medicine and Biology (ESMRMB).

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