Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Slavica Tomovic, Dr Benjamin SherlockORCiD, Professor Jeffrey NeashamORCiD, Professor Igor Radusinovic
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Event-driven Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs) face the critical challenge of minimizing event-reporting delay while maintaining energy efficiency in resource-constrained underwater environments. This paper presents a novel asynchronous duty-cycling communication protocol integrating anycast forwarding and collision avoidance mechanisms to address this challenge without requiring energy-intensive synchronization overhead. The proposed protocol enables nodes to perform independent sleep-wake scheduling while opportunistically leveraging multiple forwarding candidates to minimize transmission latency. To handle packet collisions inherent in asynchronous networks, we developed a specialized MAC-layer collision avoidance mechanism optimized for underwater acoustic communication characteristics, specifically accounting for long propagation delays and effectively mitigating collisions when multiple nodes detect events in close temporal proximity or when multiple forwarding candidates wake up concurrently. The protocol employs a sender-initiated approach that allows nodes to remain silent until events occur, thereby reducing acoustic emissions and making the network less susceptible to detection. We validate the protocol through a comprehensive evaluation comprising hardware implementation, hardware-in-the-loop simulations, and sea trials in the Adriatic Sea. Comparative analysis against a state-of-the-art benchmark demonstrates significantly lower event-reporting delay and reduced per-event energy consumption under equivalent duty-cycle conditions. Experimental results further confirm efficient power management and reliable data delivery even in highly challenging underwater acoustic environments, making the protocol particularly suitable for long-term covert underwater monitoring applications where both performance and stealth are essential.
Author(s): Tomovic S, Sherlock B, Neasham J, Radusinovic I
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: IEEE Access
Year: 2026
Volume: 14
Pages: 12376-12395
Online publication date: 15/01/2026
Acceptance date: 10/01/2026
Date deposited: 02/02/2026
ISSN (electronic): 2169-3536
Publisher: IEEE
URL: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2026.3654655
DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2026.3654655
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
