Underwater wireless sensor networks: a review of routing protocols, taxonomy, and future directions

Wireless transmission of information using water as a communication channel is one of the potential technologies for the progress of potential underwater observation systems including applications from aquaculture to the oil industry, submarine detection, instrument monitoring, and forecast of natural turbulence and study of marine life. Underwater wireless sensor networks applications are exhilarating but demanding at the same time. Some of the challenges faced by underwater networks are the movement of nodes in three-dimensional space because of which the network could not be well thought-out as a fixed topology, limited bandwidth, exceedingly low data rates, limited battery power, failures due to pollution, and corrosion, and a lot more. Additionally, as acoustic communications consume more power than terrestrial radio ones do, more sophisticated signal processing methods are needed at the receiver to make up for the channel's deficiencies. One of these difficulties is creating a routing protocol for the complexity of an underwater environment. The major aim of all these protocols is to advance data packets toward the sink to lessen the propagation delay, lessen energy expenditure, and utilize the least amount of bandwidth by restricting the broadcasting of multiple copies of the data packet. This article surveys various routing schemes and various challenges involved in the design and development of these routing schemes.