Protocol design and implementation based on hierarchical state machine for underwater acoustic networks

With increasing need on underwater applications, the research on underwater acoustic networks (UANs) becomes more and more important. In addition to proposals for many protocols at each layer, the underwater network architecture is also in need of well-suited solutions. In recent years, several platforms have been proposed that can test a variety of protocols in both simulation and field test cases. Because most of them are extended from network simulators (e.g., NS-2 and NS-3), they require the user to be familiar with these simulator platforms to implement protocols, which is difficult and would waste time during the initial research phase. In fact, the state machine is a common way to describe a network protocol. As far as we know, however, current platforms do not include a state machine-based protocol design method. In this paper, we propose a framework for protocol design in UANs based on a hierarchical state machine (HSM). We have completed fundamental code implementation of this framework successfully in both pool environment and simulation channel. The proposed framework will be a great convenience to the study of UAN protocols.