Modified MAC (media access control) protocol design for the acoustic-based underwater digital data communication

This study proposes a new efficient MAC (media access control) protocol to establish the ultrasonic communication network for underwater vehicles, which ensures a certain level of maximum throughput regardless of the propagation delay of ultrasonics and allows fast data transmission through the multiple ultrasonic communication channel. In this study, a media access control protocol for underwater communication network that allows 'peer-to-peer' communication between a surface ship and multiple underwater systems is designed and the proposed control protocol is implemented for its verification. The experimental results of the system are verified to a high performance with 9600 bps for transmitting the underwater image through the basin test. The test results are also verified which allows desirable transmission performance compared with the existing developed system.