Effects of Wind-Induced Near-Surface Bubble Plumes on the Performance of Underwater Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks

This paper analyzes the effects of near-surface oceanic bubble plumes on the overall performance of underwater wireless acoustic sensor networks (UWASNs). The existence of bubble plumes in surface and subsurface ocean water columns is inevitable in most windy oceanic environments. There exists studies reporting the anomalous behavior of acoustic signal propagating through oceanic bubble plumes due to absorption and scattering. However, most of the existing network protocols designed for use in UWASNs are ignorant of these effects. In this paper, we first mathematically model the absorption effects of these bubble plumes on the acoustic communication media. Consequently, the overall performance of UWASNs is studied with respect to different parameters. Simulation-based results show that in the presence of bubble plumes, packet delivery ratio decreases by 34% while average energy consumption per node increases by 7%. In addition, signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio decreases by similar to 53% and bit error rate increases by 57% in the presence of bubble plumes in UWASNs.