A review of routing protocols of underwater acoustic sensor networks from application perspective

Underwater acoustic communications are different from terrestrial radio communications in terms of limited acoustic channel capacity, long propagation delay and highly dynamic and asymmetrical underwater acoustic underwater channel as well as high transmission and reception power consumption of sensor nodes. These peculiar features make routing in underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) quite different from that in terrestrial wireless networks. In this case, it is impossible to design just one or two routing protocols that can cost-effectively support all underwater application scenarios, and an optimal design must take into account each different favorable feature available in different scenarios to maximize routing performance, especially the characteristics of various network topologies. Therefore, in this paper, we review some typical routing protocols proposed for UASNs from application perspectives in terms of the adopted routing strategies and the feasibility of the proposed routing schemes, which is different from the existing reviews that are conducted mainly following the taxonomy for terrestrial wireless sensor networks.