IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 67, NO.
11, NOVEMBER 2018
A Stratification-Based Data Collection Scheme
in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks
Guangjie Han , Member, IEEE, Songjie Shen, Houbing Song , Senior Member, IEEE, Tao Yang,
and Wenbo Zhang
Abstract—Underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) are
widely used in a variety of ocean applications, such as explor-
ing ocean resources or monitoring abnormal ocean environments.
However, data collection schemes in UASNs are significantly
different from those in wireless sensor networks due to high
power consumption, severe propagation delay, and so on. Fur-
thermore, previous research has overlooked practical conditions,
such as characteristics of water delamination and energy con-
straint on autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). In this paper,
a stratification-based data collection scheme for three-dimensional
UASNs is proposed to solve these problems. In this scheme, the
network is divided into two layers on the basis of the Ekman drift
current model. The upper layer, called the Ekman layer, suffers
large water velocity. Thus, nodes in the upper layer will follow the
water flow. In this case, we employ a forward set-based multihop
forwarding algorithm for data collection. The lower layer suffers
small water velocity so that nodes in this layer are considered as
relatively static. A neighbor density clustering-based AUV data
gathering algorithm is applied in this layer for data collection.
By employing different data collection algorithms in different lay-
ers, we can integrate the advantages of a multihop transmission
scheme and AUV-aided data collection scheme to reduce network
consumption and improve network lifetime. The simulation results
also confirm the proposed method has good performance.
Index Terms—Underwater acoustic sensor networks, Ekman,
stratification, data collection.
I. INTRODUCTION
NDERWATER acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) have
U attracted widespread empirical attention in recent years.
Manuscript received February 6, 2018; revised June 20, 2018; accepted Au-
gust 17, 2018. Date of publication August 24, 2018; date of current version
November 12, 2018. This work was supported in part by the National Key Re-
search and Development Program under Grant 2018YFC0407900, in part by
the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61572172 and
61872124, in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Uni-
versities under Grant 2016B10714, and in part by Six talent peaks project in
Jiangsu Province under Grant XYDXXJS-007. The review of this paper was
coordinated by K. Temma. (Corresponding author: Guangjie Han.)
G. Han, S. Shen, and T. Yang are with the State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-
Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Center for Global Change and
Water Cycle, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China (e-mail:,hanguangjie@
gmail.com; shensongjiehhuc@outlook.com; tao.yang@hhu.edu.cn).
H. Song is with the Department of Electrical, Computer, Software, and Sys-
tems Engineering, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL
32114 USA (e-mail:,h.song@ieee.org).
W. Zhang is with the School of Information Science and Engineering,
Shenyang Ligong University, Shenyang 110159, China (e-mail:,zhangwenbo@
yeah.net).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TVT.2018.2867021
0018-9545 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
10671
Water covers 70.8% of the Earth’s surface, and UASNs are
widely used [1]–[3] in marine environmental monitoring, ocean
disaster warning, military monitoring, resource exploration, etc.
These applications are largely based on data sensation, including
simple binary data, audio, images, videos, and other complex in-
formation. Therefore, it is important to collect sensed data using
the appropriate equipment for processing to obtain the required
information. At the same time, the special characteristics of the
underwater environment [4]–[5] pose substantial challenges to
underwater data collection.
Firstly, the data transfer rate with wireless radio on land is
3 × 108 m/s, five orders of magnitude greater than the underwa-
ter acoustic frequency. Thus, underwater communication mostly
poses severe propagation delay. Secondly, underwater security
communication [6] is important but comes with challenges. It
suffers several underwater attacks [7] such as wormhole attack,
sink hole attack, HELLO flood attack, etc. Hence, trust model
based on trust metrics is considered for applying against under-
water attackers [8]. Thirdly, the node movement in underwater
is relatively large and causes unstable network topology. As
a consequence, making the traditional data collection schemes
infeasible for underwater environment. Finally, the underwa-
ter sensor nodes with limited batteries lifespan are difficult to
replace or recharge after being deployed in an underwater envi-
ronment. Thus, it is important to develop techniques to improve
the energy efficiency of the nodes and to extend the network
lifetime.
Existing research on underwater data collection can be sepa-
rated into two different categories: data collection via multi-hop
transmission, or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The
former has low latency but uneven energy consumption; the
latter reduces transmission energy consumption but has a se-
vere delay. In practical applications, data collection by the AUV
is relatively a more appropriate choice [9]. It can reduce the
energy consumption of each node while balancing the energy
consumption of each node although it has a certain level data
collection delay. Nevertheless, these algorithms are proposed
in ideal cases that rarely consider hydrological characteristics
and actual situation, such as water stratification, water velocity,
limited energy of AUV, and so on. Given these constraints, how
to design an energy efficient, low collection delay and realistic
data collection scheme is significantly need to be addressed.
In this study, we consider the fact that water flow stratification
and energy of the AUV is limited. Then, we employ different
data collection algorithms in layers with different water velocity
10672 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 67, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2018
TABLE I
DIFFERENT TYPES OF DATA COLLECTION ALGORITHMS
characteristics. Afterward, we integrate advantages of the multi-
hop transmission and AUV-aided data collection. This scheme
aims at reducing node energy consumption and data collection
delay as much as possible. Consequently, the network lifetime
and data collection efficiency can be improved.
The main contributions of this paper are as follows:
1) Combined with Ekman drift theory, the proposed
model divides the network into layers with different mobility
characteristics.
2) Using different data collection algorithms in different
layers, the model integrates the advantages of multi-hop trans-
mission and AUV-aided data collection.
3) Considering its limited energy, the AUV sets a dynamic
threshold to ensure it can successfully return to the sink node
for energy supplementation.
The remainder of this paper is organized thusly: Section II
describes relevant work related to underwater data collection
schemes. Section III presents the network model and corre-
sponding concepts. Section IV details the proposed algorithms
for different layers. The simulation results and performance
analysis are discussed in Section V. Finally, Section VI pro-
vides the conclusion.
II. RELATED WORKS
In the underwater sensor network, data collection algorithms
are based on routing algorithms. Many researchers have pro-
posed several data collection algorithms, either ones with data
transmission via multi-hop methods or data gathering using
AUVs. Table I presents several typical algorithms.
In multi-hop transmission scheme, source nodes transfer data
packets through relay nodes to the sink on the water’s surface
through a series of routing mechanisms, such as a greedy pol-
icy, shortest path policy. In [10], Xie et al. proposed a multi-hop
transmission algorithm named VBF. In VBF, a virtual pipeline
with a fixed width between the source node and the sink node
was set up, and the data was transferred by flooding the re-
gion where the vector was located. Due to substantial energy
consumed by this scheme through flooding, it was not suitable
for sparse networks. Therefore, Nicolas et al. extended VBF
to the hop-by-hop VBF protocol (HH-VBF protocol) in order
to improve VBF’s performance in [11]. HH-VBF changed the
direction of forwarding hop by hop to identify a more appropri-
ate forwarding pipeline. However, the forwarding mechanism
of HH-VBF was similar to the VBF, leading to only a slight
improvement. To further reduce energy consumption, Yu et al.
in [12] investigated an adaptive HH-VBF (AHH-VBF) routing
protocol in underwater sparse acoustic sensor networks. The
pipeline radius was changed, and the power level was adjusted
according to the neighbor node locations to reduce forwarding
power and calculated the packet holding time according to the
distance from the current node to the destination node to sup-
press redundant packet forwarding. The algorithm decreased
energy consumption, data redundancy, and delay by adapting
the virtual pipeline and transmission radius as well as setting
the packet holding time.
Another multi-hop transmission scheme similar to HH-VBF
is layer by layer angle-based flooding (L2-ABF), proposed by
Ali et al. in [13]. Multiple sinks were deployed on the wa-
ter’s surface, and the entire network was divided into lay-
ers by broadcasting hello packets (HPs). Each node in the
layer forwarded the data to the upper layer as the data pack-
ages were subsequently forwarded to the sink via multi-hop.
During the data forwarding, the node determined the flooding
area based on angle, θL 2−A bf = 90◦ ± 10 K (K = 1, 2 · · · 8),
0 < θL 2−A bf < π. The calculation of priority based on remain-
ing energy, each node could transfer data packages to the appro-
priate relay nodes. This scheme was autonomous and did not
rely on location information but decreased end-to-end delay.
However, the choice of K value was a difficult task, especially
in sparse networks. If the value of K was not appropriate, the
probability of forwarding failure greatly increased.
Another type of data collection scheme is mobile data col-
lection by AUVs. As AUVs need not to repeatly through each
node for data gathering; they suppose to traverse the cluster
head nodes instead, assuming the network is clustered, which
greatly reduces AUVs’ travel distance. This confirms the Trav-
eling Salesman Problem (TSP) problem. In [14], Cui et al. dis-
covered that Layered-Scan and 3D Hilbert had the better perfor-
mance in term of path length. Layered-Scan was the simplest and
straightforward method, but it would have severe delay. Besides,
Layered-Scan was incompatible with dynamic environments. In
[15], Yuh-Shyan Chen et al. divided the network into 3D-ZOR
regions. When the AUV got its own location coordinates, it
formed a spherical region whose radius is an integer multiple of
the AUV communication radius. Subsequently, the AUV used
multicast to send out a control packet which included region
information, traveled along a predetermined path and collected
data from sensor nodes within a series of 3-D ZORs at differ-
ent times. Li et al. in [16] proposed a data collection algorithm
based on probabilistic neighborhood. The algorithm defined the
probabilistic neighborhood range p, where nodes had the low-
est error probability of transmission. Hereafter, network nodes
clustered according to the parameter p, and an AUV traversed
all cluster heads for data collection using greedy heuristic al-
gorithm. The algorithm clearly improved the information gain
and decreased the energy consumption of nodes. However, it
encountered severe collection delay compared to multi-hop for-
warding schemes. In addition, Khan et al. put forth a data col-
lection algorithm of AUV cooperative transmission based on
the network partition in [17]. For simple description, we ab-
breviate this algorithm as DGS-AUV. In DGS-AUV, the sink
divided the whole network plane into multiple Tyson polygons
HAN et al.: STRATIFICATION-BASED DATA COLLECTION SCHEME IN UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC SENSOR NETWORKS 10673

based on Voronoi generator points. Each polygon was assigned

an AUV, and the path was planned according to the clustering
situation. At the same time, AUV collaborate for transmission
by setting a proxy node in each area. The scheme reduced the
end-to-end delay and the energy consumption of the nodes, but
the AUVs’ paths were not optimal and collaboration between
multiple AUVs was a very difficult task.
Recently, several data collection algorithms seek to combine
the two types of algorithms. Ilyas et al. devised an AUV-aided
Efficient Data Gathering Routing Protocol (AEDG) in [18]. One
AUV moved along a predetermined elliptical trajectory, broad-
casted an HP to change information, and selected the gateway
nodes (GNs) based on the RSSI value and the residual energy
of nodes. Meanwhile, the member nodes (MNs) associated the
gateway nodes with the shortest path and transmited data pack-
ages to the AUV through the gateway nodes. This method could
effectively reduce the member nodes’ energy consumption, on
other hand, it could easily cause a hot zone problem. In [19],
Fig. 1. Ekman drift.
Naveed et al. improved AEDG and proposed a Scalable and
Efficient Data Gathering Routing Protocol (SEDG). In SEDG,
the MNs’ number of GNs was restricted, and the AUV dynam- which describes the movement of sea water. As depth increases,
ically assigned a sojourn time to GNs based on the number of the flow velocity of an Ekman drift decreases, and its direction
packets received and the number of associated member nodes. deflects. At a certain depth, the flow direction is opposite to
Compared to AEDG, SEDG attains a higher energy efficiency the surface flow, and the water velocity drops to about 4% of
and scalability. In [20] Cheng et al. suggested a hybrid data col- the surface water velocity. This depth is called ‘Ekman Depth’,
lection method that emphasized the importance of data. Nodes as shown in Fig. 1. However, hydrology issues are distinctly
forwarded important data through the multi-hop to correspond- different for separate regions and climates [23], so the depth is
ing layer for reducing delays. In contrast, the common data was also different. The IHA method or the new IHA method provides
collected by an AUV from bottom to top, running in a spiral tra- feasible method for studying the influence of these factors on the
jectory. The solution could balance energy consumption of the water flow [24]. In the case of limited deep sea, if depth is lower
entire network nodes, improve the network lifetime and eventu- than Ekman depth, the deflection angle and water velocity cease
ally reduce the delay of important data. On the other hand, the to change when considering the nodes’ volume and quality;
proportion of important data was small part, so the influence hence, the nodes are essentially static. The empirical formula of
of energy consumption and delay is insufficient for the whole Ekman depth is as follows [22]:
network. 
Generally, fewer researchers take multi-hop transmission or AZ
H=π (1)
AUV-aided for data collection alone, most of them have begun ω · sin ϕ
to combine these two approaches to design better data collec-
where H is the height of the drift layer. ω represents the
tion schemes. It is essential to know methods respective ad-
rotational angular velocity of the Earth; its value is usually
vantages and disadvantages when designing novel approaches
7.15 × 10−5 . ϕ is the latitude of the Earth, ranging from 0
in the future. In the current study, we propose a feasible data
to 90 degrees. Az represents the turbulence viscosity coeffi-
collection scheme leveraging the advantages of the above two
cient of the z direction, which reflects the fluid’s movement
methods.
state.
III. PRELIMINARIES
B. Network Architecture
In this section, we first introduce the Ekman drift current
The architecture is divided into two layers and is composed
model, and then describe the network architecture in a 3D
of one sink, one AUV, common underwater sensor nodes (SNs),
UASN. Lastly, we incorporate an energy consumption model,
and GNs as illustrated in Fig. 2. A set of underwater sen-
collection delay model and sleep-wake mechanism into the en-
sor nodes S = {S1 , S2 , . . . , Sn } is randomly deployed in the
tire network.
M × M × N 3D underwater area. The nodes are not anchored
in the underwater area and the movement of nodes is only caused
A. Ekman Drift Current Model
by currents. In addition, the water velocity is large in the upper
According to the Physical Oceanography [21]–[22], when layer and is small in the lower layer in this network. Therefore,
stable winds blow on a vast and infinite sea, a stable seawater the node locations change continuously in the upper layer but
movement follows, called drift. V. W. Ekman devised the term, are relatively static in the lower layer. In this paper, we assume
10674 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 67, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2018
Fig. 2. Network architecture.
the movement is random in the horizontal direction, and we
ignore the vertical movement. Each sensor node has a unique
identifier, the same sensed range rt and a communication range
rc where rt < rc . Each node has limited energy, and the initial
energy is E0 . These nodes are equipped with acoustic com-
munication devices to exchange information with other nodes
and the AUV. They all have enough cache space to store data
packages. They can also obtain their locations via existing local-
ization algorithms [25]–[27]. Besides, localization technology
in ocean sensor network [28] differs from ordinary underwater
localization. The sink node is located in the center of the water
surface, considered as destination, equipped with both acoustic
module and radio module. Hence, it can communicate with sen-
sor nodes and transfer data to the base station on land. Besides,
location of the sink node is known by the GPS device. Nodes
forward location information to sink through multiple hops or
AUVs. Then, the initial deployment knowledge of all nodes can
be assumed to be pre-known by the sink node. The AUV whose
energy is limited and sensed range is equal to the nodes begins
to dive along the predetermined vertical track from the sink in
the upper layer. In this paper, the AUV plays the role of a mo-
bile sink: collecting data from sensor nodes from top to bottom.
When diving in the upper layer, the AUV forms a cylindrical
data collection region whose radius is equal to rt . Sensor nodes
in this region play the role of GNs; those outside of the region
are SNs. GNs receive data packages from common underwater
sensor nodes and transfer information to the AUV. When the
AUV’s residual energy falls below the threshold, it sets up a
vector to the sink and then floats quickly along the path to the
sink to replenish its energy. Thereafter, it returns to the floating
path. The AUV controls its velocity by accelerating when in this
process with the help of buoyancy and gravity.
C. Energy Consumption Model
The energy consumption model adopted in this article is in-
fluenced by factors such as bandwidth, transmission loss, and
propagation delay. Such a model mostly contains two parts:
communication overhead and transmission loss. The former is
related to frequency, and the latter is linked to the size of each
package and the transmission distance. The overall definition of
energy consumption for packet transmission can be expressed
as follows [29]–[30]:
Etx = Pr · Tp · A(d) (2)
where Pr is the power consumption; Tp is data transmission time
and A(d) represents the loss of energy when the data packet
is transmitted underwater at distance d. A(d) = dλ a(f )d , the
value of λ for spherical spreading is 2 while cylindrical spread-
ing commonly uses λ = 1 and its practical value is 1.5. The
absorption coefficient a(f )can be calculated using Equation (3)
[29]–[30]:
0.011f 2 4.4f 2
log a(f ) = 2
+ + 2.75 × 10−5 f 2 + 0.0003
1+f 4100 + f 2
(3)
where f is the carrier frequency in kHz and the absorption
coefficient is in dB/km.
D. Collection Delay Model
This paper divides the collection delay into two parts: the
AUV’s travel time during data collection, and the total time
of residence at GNs in the upper layer and at the cluster
heads in the lower layer. The total delay can be calculated by
Equation (4):
Ltr av el 
k
Tcollection = + Tr esiden ce (i) (4)
vA U V
i=1
where Tcollection is the AUV’s collection delay, Ltr av el is the
length of the travel path, vA U V is the velocity of the AUV, and
Tr esiden ce (i) is the residence time of the AUV at each GN or
cluster head.
E. Sleeping Schedule Mechanism
In this article, each round represents one cycle. When trans-
ferring data packages to the data collection region, the nodes in
the upper layer will enter into a sleep state, to avoid transferring
messages by nodes, but can still receive them [15]. Diving from
the water’s surface, the AUV broadcasts control messages in its
sensed range. GNs that receive messages will be awakened to
transfer data packages to the AUV. Henceforth, all GNs enter
into a sleep state again [15] at the end of the current round. Nodes
in the lower layer follow similar mechanism. After clustering,
nodes in clusters enter into a sleep state and wake up when the
AUV reaches the cluster heads to broadcast the control mes-
sages in its sensed range. These steps continue in subsequent
rounds.
HAN et al.: STRATIFICATION-BASED DATA COLLECTION SCHEME IN UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC SENSOR NETWORKS
Fig. 3. Data collection mechanism.
IV. SDCS
Due to the hierarchical strategy employed in this paper, dif-
ferent data collection algorithms must be designed for different
layers.
Based on the Ekman drift current model mentioned ear-
lier, nodes in the upper layer (also called the Ekman layer)
move quickly because of the great water velocity. After a pe-
riod of time, the locations of the nodes will change in the up-
per layer, causing difficultly to maintain stable communication
links. Upon receiving a transmission request from one node
through multiple hops, the AUV tries to reach that node. Unfor-
tunately, the node may change its original position and sometime
out of the AUV’s sensed range, leading to the AUV failing to
collect the data packages as expected. Thus, the AUV has dif-
ficulty planning its travel path in dynamic situations. However,
nodes which suffer low water velocity in the lower layer will
maintain clustering status. The AUV simply traverses all clus-
ters to carry out data collection. Traditional algorithms, such
as the greedy heuristic algorithm or layered-scan algorithm, are
suitable for static nodes in the lower layer but have poor per-
formance. This study therefore proposes two data collection al-
gorithms: forwarding set-based multi-hop forwarding algorithm
and neighbor density clustering-based AUV data collection al-
gorithm, corresponding to the upper layer and the lower layer. In
the proposed scheme, we capitalize on the advantages of multi-
hop forwarding and AUV-aided data gathering to reduce nodes’
energy consumption and shorten the delay.
A. Forwarding Set-Based Multi-Hop Forwarding Algorithm
For the 3D UWSN, the sink node has prior deployment knowl-
edge and informs the AUV of this information before the AUV
dives from the water surface. Due to node movement, this in-
formation is insignificant for the AUV in the upper layer. The
algorithm is divided into two parts. In the first, the AUV parti-
tions the upper layer into several same-sized three-dimensional
cubes and travels along the predetermined trajectory to form a
cylindrical data collection region to alleviate the hot spot prob-
lem. As shown in Fig. 3(a), the node closest to the AUV is
chosen to forward data packages to the AUV. In this case, node
A has high loading and will consume more energy than the
other nodes. Therefore, a group of nodes are employed to for-
ward data packets to the AUV. As shown in Fig. 3(b), nodes in
the data collection region will assist in forwarding data packages
10675
Fig. 4. Network coordinate system.
to the AUV, thereby lowering these nodes’ average loads. In the
second part, nodes outside of the region must adopt multi-hop
forwarding to transfer data packages to the gateway nodes that
are in the data collection region. Then, gateway nodes receiving
the data packages must wait for the AUV to wake up before
transferring data packages to it.
In the first part, a three-dimensional coordinate system is set
up. Its original point is the top left corner of the water surface,
with an x-axis positive direction to the right, y-axis positive
direction forward, and z-axis vertical direction downward. It
can be shown in Fig. 4. The initial position from which the
AUV begins diving is defined as (x0 , y0 , z0 ); the position during
diving can be expressed as (x0 , y0 , vA U V · t), 0 ≤ t ≤ v AHU V ,
where vA U V represents the AUV’s velocity, H is the height of
the Ekman layer, t is the AUV’s time spent. The AUV moves on
a predetermined vertical trajectory in the Ekman layer to form
a cylindrical data collection region, expressed as follows:
(X − x0 )2 + (Y − y0 )2 ≤ rt 2 (0 ≤ Z ≤ H) (5)
where rt is the nodes’ sensed range, H is the height of the
Ekman layer, x0 and y0 are the initial positions of the AUV, and
X, Y , and Z are the nodes’ position variables. To deal with
the nodes’ movement and reduce their load, the AUV partitions
the Ekman layer into several three-dimensional cubes of the
same size. The edge length of each cube is d. We suppose that
the distance between the three adjacent grids is the maximum
communication range of the sensor nodes, with the distance
between two grids representing the sensor nodes’ maximum
forwarding range. The maximum moving distance in each hop
is assumed to be the distance of a single grid. The radius rt must
be greater be than or equal to the √maximum distance of three
adjacent grids, expressed as d ≤ 1919 rt . Therefore, nodes can
still communicate with the source nodes even if they move out
of the data forwarding range as demonstrated in Fig. 5. When
diving, the AUV broadcasts control messages with information
about the network partition and data collection region to nodes
10676 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 67, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2018

Algorithm 1: The Forwarding Path.

Input: Forwarding set list L; data collection region
Region.
Output: Forwarding path P .
Steps:
1. loop
2. if i ∈ Region then
3. break
4. else
5. i forwards data packages to L(i).
6. end else
7. end if
8. each node j in L recalculates the grid coordinates
G(j)the distance to Region Dc (G(j)).
9. if Dc (G(j)) ≤ Dc (G(i))
Fig. 5. The relationship between d and rt .
10. if j == arg max{W (j)|j ∈ L} then
11. i = j;
12. remove j from L and reply to nodes in L drop
in the Ekman layer. At the same time, the AUV awakens the packages;
gateway nodes and receives the data packages. 13. return 2.
Then, the second part can further be divided into three phases. 14. else
In the first phase, when receiving the control messages, each 15. remove j from L.
node knows information about the network partition and data 16. if |L| > 0
collection region. After that, the nodes calculate the grid coordi- 17. return 8.
nates using Equation (6). Each node also calculates the distance 18. else
to the center of the collection region and forwarding probabil- 19. i = arg max{W (j)|j ∈ L};
ity for a data package with size n bits to another node using 20. return 5.
Equations (7) and (8), respectively. Residual energy and the 21. end else
number of forwarding packages must also be obtained and 22. end if
counted. Each node exchanges all information with its neighbor 23. end else
nodes using the following formula: 24. end if
 
a b c 25. else
G || || + 1, || || + 1, || || + 1 (6) 26. remove j from L/
d d d
27. end else
where (a, b, c) is the node coordinate. • denotes taking the 28. end if
largest integer. 29. end loop

Dc = (a − x0 )2 + (b − y0 )2 (7)
where a and b are a node’s vertical and horizontal coordinates. of its neighbor nodes by Equation (10) and sorts the weights in
x0 and y0 are the vertical and horizontal coordinates of the center descending order.
of the data collection region.
Er es Dm ax 1
W = αppack ag e + β +γ +(1 − α − β − γ)
ppack ag e = (1 − pe )n (8) E0 Dc count
(10)
where pe is the bit error probability. According to [29], it can where W is the node’s weight; α, β,and γ are weight factors that
be calculated as follows: indicate the importance of the indicator in the system; ppack ag e
  
1 SN Rav g is the forwarding probability; Er es is the residual energy; E0 is
pe = 1− (9) the initial energy; Dm ax is the network boundary length M ; Dc
2 1 + SN Rav g
is the distance to the center of the collection region; and count
where SN Rav g is the average signal-to-noise ratio of underwa- is the counting of forwarding packages, and each time nodes
ter acoustic communication. transfer or forward a data packet, the value plus one. Then, each
In the second phase, each node uses Equation (7) to determine node can select the appropriate number of relay nodes as the
whether it is within the data collection region. If so, the node forwarding set. The pseudo-code for selecting the forwarding
will wait for the AUV and then forward data packages to it; if set is given in Algorithm 1.
not, the node will forward data packages to the data collection In the third phase, the source node transfers data packages to
region via the multi-hop method. Based on information from the relay nodes in the forwarding set. Each relay node recalculates
first phase, each node outside the region calculates the weight the grid coordinates. If one relay node discovers its weight is
HAN et al.: STRATIFICATION-BASED DATA COLLECTION SCHEME IN UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC SENSOR NETWORKS
Fig. 6. Forwarding in the upper layer.
highest and it has moved to the more superior grid closest to
the data collection region, then the relay node will continue to
forward data packages and reply to the other nodes in the for-
warding set. The number of forwarding packages increases by
one at the same time. Other relay nodes listen to this information
and then drop the packages. In contrast, if the relay node with
the highest weight has to move to a worse grid compared to the
relay node with the second-highest weight, then the relay node
with the second-highest weight will forward data packages and
reply to other nodes and so on. If all nodes in the forwarding
set move to worse grids away from the data collection region,
then the relay node with the highest weight must reselect the
forwarding set. This process is repeated at every hop until the
data packages are transferred to the data collection region. At
the same time, in order to reduce the load, each gateway node
sets a threshold of residual energy, T hf or w ar d . When the resid-
ual energy is less than the threshold, nodes will not serve as
GNs. The forwarding process is shown in Fig. 6.
B. Neighbor Density Clustering-Based AUV Data Gathering
Algorithm
In contrast to the upper layer, nodes in the lower layer are
assumed to be static. Here, the AUV with pre-known deploy-
ment knowledge from the sink uses the neighbor density-based
clustering algorithm to cluster. After that, it is imperative to re-
solve the AUV’s travel path to traverse all cluster heads. This
is usually NP-hard problem similar to TSP. In this article, we
adopt the Dijkstra algorithm that reduces the AUV’s travel path
length, it’s energy consumption and data collection delay.
This process is divided into two parts. In the first part,
based on lower layer deployment information obtained from
the sink node, the AUV uses the neighbor density algorithm
for clustering. This algorithm forms cluster using node and it’s
neighbor nodes. If the density of the neighbor nodes is sub-
stantial, the AUV accumulates more data packages at given
time. What’s more, because the cluster radius is equal to the
sensed range of the nodes, all nodes in a cluster are capable
to forward data packages to the AUV with a single hop when
the AUV reaches the cluster heads. To minimize transmission
10677
Algorithm 2: Neighbor Density-Based Clustering.
Input: Node set S; the locations of the nodes in S;
the transmission radius rt .
Output: Neighborhood clustering set, C.
Steps:
1. loop
2. each node i in S calculates its neighbor nodes set
N ei(i)within radius rt and the number of its
neighbor num(i);
3. cj = arg max{num(i)|i ∈ S};
4. add cj into C;
5. remove cj and N ei(cj ) from S;
6. if S = φ then
7. j = j + 1;
8. repeat loop;
9. end if
10. end loop
interference, TDMA-based multiple access control protocol is
utilized. By this approach, the energy consumption of nodes is
less than in the multi-hop method, and the energy consumption
is more balanced. Then, the AUV broadcasts clustering infor-
mation and the it’s coordinate message. Each node receives this
information and identifies the cluster to which it belongs. The
pseudo-code of the neighbor density-based clustering algorithm
is given in Algorithm 2.
Algorithm 2 can be divided into three phases. In the first
phase, using the sensed range of nodes as the cluster radius and
the neighbor nodes as the cluster members, each node creates a
neighbor nodes table. In the second phase, the AUV sorts all the
tables in descending order by the number of neighbor nodes; the
node with the most neighbors is selected as the first cluster head
node. In the third phase, other nodes’ neighbor nodes tables
delete the node that has been selected as the cluster head node
and its cluster members. Then, the process loops until all nodes
are clustered. Isolated nodes do not participate in this process
and are considered individual clusters.
After the second part, the AUV traverses all cluster heads,
which are regarded as the AUV’s arrest points. Initially, due
to limited energy, the AUV decides whether residual energy
can support the AUV in reaching its next arrest point. The
judgement process is as follows. We suppose the AUV’s ini-
tial energy is Ein it , and Etr av el is the energy consumption
of moving unit distance. At the same time, the consumption
of the received data packages is ignored by the AUV be-
cause the reception consumption is substantially lower than
motion consumption. Since the AUV enters into the lower
layer, its residual energy is Er es A U V = Ein it − H · Etr av el .
Assume the current coordinate of the AUV is taken to be
(x1 , y1 , z1 ); (x2 , y2 , z2 ) to signify the next position coordi-
nate to be reached bythe AUV. The distance between two
positions is Dn ext = (x1 − x2 )2 + (y1 − y2 )2 + (z1 − z2 )2 ,
and the distance back to the sink node is Dback =
10678 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 67, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2018
TABLE II
SIMULATION PARAMETERS

(x2 − x0 )2 + (y2 − y0 )2 + (z2 − 0)2 . Then, we can calcu-
late the dynamic threshold: ET hr eshold = Dback · Etr av el . Af-
ter that, we determine whether Er es A U V − Etr av el · Dn ext is
greater than ET hr eshold . If so, then the AUV arrives at the
next point successfully; otherwise, it will accelerate floating to
the sink node with velocity vf loat for energy supplementation
and then return along the floating path to continue collecting
immediately. The process of float upward and dive downward
consumes little energy by adjusting gravity and buoyancy. The
above process repeats until all arrest points are traversed and the
AUV returns to water surface to end the current round.
To further balance the nodes energy consumption, the AUV
first rotates some degrees clockwise and moves horizontally for
a distance before diving in the next round. Then, it forms a new
cylindrical data collection region to avoid the same nodes being
repeatedly considered GNs.
V. SIMULATION AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
A. Simulation Setup
In this section, taking into account the challenges and ad-
vancements in underwater sensor network simulation and ex-
perimental platforms [31], MATLAB is a good choice to evalu-
ate the performance of the proposed algorithms. Initially, sensor
nodes are randomly deployed in a 800 m × 800 m × 600 m
three-dimensional underwater region. A sink node is fixed at
the center of the water surface. The AUV moves down at a con-
stant velocity to collect data. When the energy is less than the
dynamic threshold, the AUV will float to the sink to replenish
energy with a faster velocity. In this article, the unit consump-
tion of the AUV is set to 8 J/m because the consumption of
SenCar on land is approximately 5 J/m [32]–[33], whereas in
an underwater environment, the AUV will be affected by resis-
tance. Thus, consumption increases. Each node forwards 100
packages per round, the size of each of which is 1024 bit. The
other basic environmental parameters are listed in Table II.
Besides the unit energy consumption, network life, package
delivery ratio, and collection delay, we examined the effects
of Ekman layer height, water velocity, data rate, the AUVs
Fig. 7. Simulation results with different algorithms.
velocity, and change of the AUV initial dive position. Unit en-
ergy consumption is defined as the average energy consumption
per node in each round when forwarding packages once. Net-
work lifetime is defined as the elapsed time when the first node
dies in the network. The package delivery ratio (PDR) is defined
as the ratio of packages successfully received by the AUV to the
packages sent by all nodes. Collection delay includes two parts:
the AUVs time of residence at each arrest point, and the AUVs
traversal time.
B. Results and Analysis
1) Comparing Different Algorithms: We evaluate the pro-
posed algorithm through performance comparison among four
existing algorithms (HH-VBF [11], PNCS-GHA [16], SEDG
[19] and DGS [20]) in terms of unit energy consumption, net-
work lifetime, PDR, and collection delay. They achieved data
collection in three different ways. All the algorithms worked
in the same environment, and the number of nodes is 150, 250,
350, 450, and 550, respectively. Fig. 7(a) depicts that unit energy
consumption decreases as the node number increases taking the
number of nodes varies from 150 to 550. It is observed that
the proposed algorithm consumes less energy than HH-VBF,
AEDG and DGS but more than PNCS-GHA in any case. Addi-
tionally, the gap becomes smaller as the node density increases.
Fig. 7(b) displays the network lifetime under different numbers
of nodes. As expected, network lifetime demonstrates the oppo-
site trend with unit energy consumption. With the same number
of nodes, the proposed algorithm has the second-highest net-
work lifetime and is much larger than the other three algorithms
but smaller than PNCS-GHA. In the proposed algorithm, the
sleep-wake mechanism is introduced, to greatly reduces the
nodes load. Each node enters a sleep state and is activated in
the next round when it sends data packages. What’s more, the in-
troduction of data collection region and AUV-based, multi-hop
HAN et al.: STRATIFICATION-BASED DATA COLLECTION SCHEME IN UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC SENSOR NETWORKS 10679

transmission-assisted data collection method reduce the energy

of the nodes by transferring the nodes energy consumption to
the AUV. On other hand, SEDG has low network lifetime and
high energy consumption as the AUV track is constant, leading
to little change in the gateway nodes in the algorithm. At the
same time, the number of gateway nodes is relatively small,
hence nodes load and energy consumption are substantial; some
nodes die early. DGS has higher energy efficiency than SEDG,
because it also uses the collection region. A group of sensors
within the collection region will assist in forwarding the data
to the AUV, that eventually reduces energy consumption. How-
ever, DGS has more nodes that need to forward data packages
to the collection region through multi-hop transmission. This
makes the energy consumption higher than the proposed algo-
rithm. Contrary to DGS, nodes close to the sink need to forward
large number of data packets from other nodes in HH-VBF and
these nodes’ energy will deplete soon. Likewise, the nodes in
HH-VBF flood data packages, causing high energy and data
redundancy. Finally, the unit energy consumption is large and
network lifetime is low. In PNCS-GHA, each node forwards
the data packages directly to the AUV by a single hop without
forwarding, then the energy consumption of nodes is low and
uniform, the network lifetime is long.
In Fig. 7(c), we note that the PDR of the proposed algorithm
increases as the node number increases. Usually, the larger the
number of nodes, the denser the network, the greater the success
rate of packet forwarding. The proposed algorithm is superior
to SEDG and DGS thanks to the weight judgement at each hop,
especially the forwarding probability. On the contrary, by using
the greedy strategy to forward data packages to the gateway
nodes, SEDG and DGS can easily encounter routing void phe-
nomena and backtracking problems. These challenge can cause
retransmission and increase the likelihood of transmission fail-
ure. HH-VBF also has a higher PDR than DGS and SEDG,
because nodes in HH-VBF flooding data packages to increase
transmission reliability although certain data redundancy exist.
Moreover, PNCS-GHA also has the highest PDR because nodes
form probabilistic neighborhood covering set and have nearly
90% PDR when p = 0.9.
Finally, Fig. 7(d) shows the collection delay; PNCS-GHA has
the most severe delay, followed by the proposed algorithm as the
second-highest and HH-VBF with the lowest. In PNCS-GHA,
the AUV traverses all neighborhood covering set. At the same
time, nodes using TDMA for data transmission lead to huge
collection delay. In the proposed, DGS and SEDG, part of the
data packages is forwarded by multi-hop and the remainder is
collected by AUV. However, the length of the AUV’s travel path
is different. The elliptical trajectory of SEDG is the shortest,
but the spiraling (rising) trajectory of DGS is the longest, such
that SEDG consumes the least amount of time and DGS spends
the most. Although the waiting time is set, the velocity of the
node through flood forwarding is still much faster than using
the AUV for collection. Therefore, HH-VBF has the lowest
data collection delay. At the same time, as the number of nodes
increases, the collection delay of all algorithms also increases.
Fig. 8. Performance with different Ekman layer height.
Fig. 9. Performance with different water velocity.
2) The Effect of Ekman Layer Height: Fig. 8 shows the effect
of Ekman layer height on unit energy consumption and collec-
tion delay. According to the empirical formula of Ekman depth
in Section III-A, Ekman layer height is different at different lat-
itude. The turbulence viscosity coefficient of the z direction AZ
is generally 1 × 10−4 ∼ 2 × 10−2 [34]. In this paper, for simu-
lation purposes, taking AZ = 0.02, then, when the latitude rises
from 0 degree to 90 degrees, the height decreases from 400 m
to 50 m. If the height is too low, simulation is meaningless.
Therefore, the height values are 200 m, 300 m, and 400 m, re-
spectively. Because different layers use different data collection
strategies, higher layers have more nodes using the multi-hop
transmission mode and less nodes need to be collected by the
AUV, then the AUV traveling path shortened. Hence, the energy
consumption is larger but the collection delay is lower. There-
fore, as seen in Fig. 8, the unit energy consumption increases
and the collection delay decreases as the Ekman layer height
increases.
3) The Effect of Water Velocity: The movement of the nodes
is affected by the water velocity, there is a positive correlation
between them. According to physical oceanography, the sea’s
water velocity is usually 1 m/s to 2 m/s on average. We consid-
ered 1 m/s and 2 m/s as the general velocity and faster velocity,
respectively; 0.5 m/s was considered close to static because it
is unreasonable for the water velocity to be zero. Fig. 9 shows
the unit energy consumption and collection delay of each round
with the variable parameter (vw ater ). In Fig. 9(a), as the value of
increases, corresponding to increased node movement velocity,
unit energy consumption increases. As a rapid water velocity can
make the nodes move faster and may lead to unstable transmis-
sion, resulting in increased energy consumption and decreased
10680 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 67, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2018
Fig. 10. Performance with different data rate.
Fig. 11. Performance with different AUV velocity.
PDR. However, with an increase in water velocity, the effect in
collection delay is not obvious. Because the force of the water
flow acts on the AUV in the horizontal direction, so when the
AUV moves vertically downwards in the upper layer, it is basi-
cally not affected by the flow of water, while the water velocity
is relatively static in the lower layer so the AUV is not affected
as well. However, in a limited space with a large number of
nodes, the number of neighbor nodes does not fluctuate much
and transmission is relatively stable, no matter how the nodes
move.
4) The Effect of Data Rate: As shows in Fig. 10, when the
number of nodes is between 150−550, the collection delay is
negatively correlated to the data rate. When the data rate is low,
it takes more time to transmit data packets with same size, then
the residence time for the AUV increases. Ultimately, it exac-
erbates collection delay throughout the data collection process.
Fig. 10 also indicates that each node’s energy consumption is
also negatively related to the data rate: a higher data rate leads
to a higher PDR and lower retransmission ratio, as the energy
consumption is relatively low.
5) The Effect of the AUV Velocity: At this stage, the AUV
with high speed is 15knots [35] about equal to 7.716 m/s. There-
fore, we changed the AUV velocity from 4 m/s to 8 m/s. Besides,
the number of nodes is 350 and the data rate is 20 kbps in the
simulation. Results of collection delay and AUV residual energy
are shown in Fig. 11. As velocity of the AUV increases, it is well
known that collection delay decreases. There is a very interest-
ing phenomenon: the AUV residual energy decreases with an
increase in velocity of the AUV. This is because within the same
time frame, the faster the AUV runs, the longer distance it trav-
els and the more energy it consumes. In addition, as time goes
by, residual energy of the AUV first decreases and then rises,
because when the residual energy is less than the threshold, the
Fig. 12. Performance with different initial dive position.
AUV floats and replenishes energy. What’s more, the energy
consumption of nodes in the network is related to transmission
distance and data packet size, but has nothing to do with the
AUV velocity. Therefore, the energy consumption of the nodes
is almost the same at different AUV velocities.
6) The Effect of Change in AUV Initial Dive Position: An-
other important way to reduce energy consumption is to change
the initial diving position. When the AUV finishes first round of
data collection, it changes its dive position before a new round.
In the simulation, we consider three situations: 1) fixed posi-
tion, where the AUV’s position does not change; 2) the AUV
rotates 30 degrees in one clockwise direction, moves 0.5 × rt
distance, and then dives; and 3) the AUV rotates 30 degrees
in one clockwise direction, moves rt distance, and then dives.
Results are shown in Fig. 11. As might be expected, the first
solution has higher energy consumption, and the gap between
the latter two scenarios is relatively large. The second and third
solutions reduce the probability of repeated GNs in the data col-
lection region, such that nodes’ energy consumption is relatively
more balanced and the network lifetime is extended.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we use the property of water stratification to di-
vide the entire network into two layers. In the upper layer, which
has faster flow, a forwarding set-based multi-hop forwarding al-
gorithm is applied to reduce the impact of node movement. At
each hop, each node acquires the weights of neighbor nodes
according to surrounding environmental factors when transmit-
ting the data. Then, each node establishes the forwarding set and
selects the relative optimal relay nodes to improve forwarding
probability and reduce transmission delay. In the lower layer,
where the water velocity is relatively small, neighbor density
clustering-based AUV data gathering algorithm is adopted to
reduce the energy consumption of nodes. By clustering nodes in
this layer, the path length of the data collection tour is shortened
to reduce AUV consumption. By simulation, we confirmed that
the algorithm reduces unit energy consumption of nodes that
improves the package delivery ratio and network lifetime. All
the same, the collection delay is relatively severe. Therefore, the
future work will take steps to decrease the collection delay, such
as by using multiple AUVs for collaborative data collection or
data collection scheme based on predictive model.
HAN et al.: STRATIFICATION-BASED DATA COLLECTION SCHEME IN UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC SENSOR NETWORKS
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Guangjie Han (S’03–M’05) received the Ph.D. de-
gree from Northeastern University, Shenyang, China,
in 2004.
He is currently a Professor with the Department
of Information and Communication System, Hohai
University, Changzhou, China, and a Distinguished
Professor with the Dalian University of Technology,
Dalian, China. From 2004 to 2006, he was a Product
Manager with the ZTE Company. In February 2008,
he finished his work as a Postdoctoral Researcher
with the Department of Computer Science, Chonnam
National University, Gwangju, South Korea. From October 2010 to 2011, he
was a Visiting Research Scholar with Osaka University, Suita, Japan. He is the
author of more than 298 papers published in related international conference
proceedings and journals, and is the holder of 120 patents. Currently, his H-index
is 29 and i10-index is 71 in Google Citation (Google Scholar). Total citation
of his papers by other people is more than 3537 times. His current research
interests include Internet of Things, sensor networks, mobile computing, smart
computing, and security. He was a Co-Chair for more than 50 international
conferences/workshops and a Technical Program Committee member of more
than 150 conferences. He was on the Editorial Boards of up to 16 international
journals, including the IEEE NETWORK, the IEEE SYSTEMS, the IEEE ACCESS,
Telecommunication Systems, etc. He has guest edited a number of special is-
sues in the IEEE JOURNALS AND MAGAZINES. He was a Reviewer of more than
60 journals. He had been awarded the ComManTel 2014, ComComAP 2014,
Chinacom 2014, and Qshine 2016 Best Paper Awards. He is a member of ACM.
10682 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 67, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2018

Songjie Shen received the B.S. degree from Hohai Tao Yang received the Ph.D degree from Nanjing
University, in 2016, Changzhou, China, where he is Normal University, Nanjing, China, in 2006. He is
currently working toward the M.S. degree with the currently the Dean and a Professor with the College
College of Internet of things Engineering. His re- of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai Univer-
search interests include data collection for underwa- sity, Nanjing, China. From 2006 to 2007, he was
ter wireless sensor networks. a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Chinese
University of Hong Kong. From 2010 to 2011, he
was a Visiting Research Fellow with Commonwealth
Science and Industry Research Organization of
Australian (CSIRO) funded by the International En-
deavor Fellowship. Since 2016, he took the position
of the Deputy Dean and the Dean of the College of Hydrology and Water Re-
sources, Hohai University. He is mainly working on modeling and prediction
of hydrological extreme events. Using a wide range of multisources metro-
logical and hydrological datasets assimilated with various remote sensing, he
has developed a big-data-based watershed hydrological model, and a two-stage
regulation for dam cascade adapting to climate change for flood and water re-
sources management. They have been testified in Yangtze, Yellow, Huai and
Tarim river for flood and water resources management. The model has also
been used in the international big project: ISI-MIP2 in European Horizon 2020
programme. To date, he has authored and coauthored 56 ISI-indexed papers in
international journals, including JGR, JOH, WRR, ERL, and HP. He has two
highly cited papers and the total cites is more than 1000 times (ESI H-index: 21).
He is currently an Associate Editor for international journal <Groundwater>
and an editor board for <J. of Arid Land>. As a principal investigator, he has
completed many state-level and international-level research grants from Chinse
NSFC and MOST, and has one national and four provincial science and tech-
nology awards. He was the National 10,000 Talents leading scientist in China.

Houbing Song (M’12–SM’14) received the Ph.D.

degree in electrical engineering from the Univer-
sity of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA, in August
2012.
In August 2017, he was with the Department
of Electrical, Computer, Software, and Systems En-
gineering, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University,
Daytona Beach, FL, USA, where he is currently an
Assistant Professor and the Director of the Security
and Optimization for Networked Globe Laboratory
(SONG Lab, www.SONGLab.us). He was the fac-
ulty of West Virginia University from August 2012 to August 2017. In 2007, he
was an Engineering Research Associate with the Texas A&M Transportation
Institute. He is currently an Associate Technical Editor for the IEEE COMMU- Wenbo Zhang received the Ph.D. degree in computer
NICATIONS MAGAZINE. He is the editor of four books, including Smart Cities: science from Northeastern University, Shenyang,
Foundations, Principles, and Applications (Wiley, 2017), Security and Pri- China, in March 2006. He is currently a Professor
vacy in Cyber-Physical Systems: Foundations, Principles and Applications, with the School of Information Science and Engineer-
Chichester (Wiley-IEEE Press, 2017), Cyber-Physical Systems: Foundations, ing, Shenyang Ligong University, Shenyang, China.
Principles and Applications (Academic Press, 2016), and Industrial Internet His current research interests are Ad hoc networks,
of Things: Cybermanufacturing Systems (Springer, 2016). He is the author of sensor networks, satellite networks, embedded
more than 100 articles. His research interests include cyber-physical systems, systems. He has author or coauthored more than 100
cybersecurity and privacy, Internet of Things, edge computing, big data analyt- papers in related international conferences and jour-
ics, unmanned aircraft systems, connected vehicle, smart and connected health, nals. He was on the editorial board of up to ten jour-
and wireless communications and networking. nals, including Chinese Journal of Electronics and
Dr. Song is a senior member of ACM. He was the very first recipient of the Journal of Astronautics. He had been awarded the ICINIS 2011 Best Paper
Golden Bear Scholar Award, the highest campus-wide recognition for research Award and up to nine Science and Technology Awards including the National
excellence at West Virginia University Institute of Technology (WVU Tech), in Science and Technology Progress Award and Youth Science and Technology
2016. Awards from China Ordnance Society.