AEDG: AUV-aided Efficient Data Gathering Routing Protocol for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are getting growing interest because of wide-range of applications. Most applications of these networks demand reliable data delivery over longer period in an efficient and timely manner. However, resource- constrained nature of these networks makes routing in a harsh and unpredictable underwater environment challenging. Most existing schemes either employ mobile sensors or a Mobile Sink (MS). However, cost of movement and sensors make such schemes infeasible. MS based schemes are not suitable for delay-sensitive large-scale applications. Unlike prior work, this paper presents a novel AUV-aided Efficient Data Gathering Routing Protocol (AEDG) for reliable data delivery. To prolong network lifetime, AEDG employs an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) to collect data from gateways. To minimize energy consumption, we use a Shortest Path Tree (SPT) algorithm while associating sensor nodes with the gateways and devise a criterion to limit the association count of nodes. Moreover, the role of gateways is rotated to balance the energy consumption. To prevent data loss, AEDG allows dynamic data collection time to AUV depending up the count of member sensors for each gateway. Moreover, we formulate a MILP model, that increases network throughput as well as conserves energy by limiting the assignment of member nodes. The performance of the AEDG is validated through simulations. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of AEDG in terms of various performance metrics.