Estimation in Underwater Sensor Networks Taking into Account Capture

Like any other ad-hoc network, an underwater communication network (UWCN) is a collection of nodes (we have assumed a large number), each of which is initially unaware of the existence of other nodes. Often, it is desirable for each node to be able to estimate the number of neighbours (i.e. the number of directly visible nodes) with which it can communicate. This paper provides a probabilistic estimation procedure for counting the number of neighbours for an UWCN (as well as for any wireless ad hoc networks) taking into account capture effect. Using the same procedure we are also able to estimate the distribution of nodes, i.e. their dimensionality.