A Framework for Residual Energy Model in UnetStack Simulator for Underwater Sensor Networks

In recent years, Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASN) has gained much attention from researchers because of its diverse applications. UASNs face several issues and challenges like limited bandwidth, high propagation delay, 3D topology, media access control, routing, resource utilization, and energy constraints. Unlike the nodes in terrestrial wireless sensor networks (TWSNs), UASNs suffer from energy constraints, severely affecting the network lifetime and throughput. Simulation of UASNs is a common aspect of researchers. It facilitates analysis of the working and performance of a UASN before it is implemented and deployed, which incurs substantial time and cost. Among the different simulation platforms available for simulating UASNs, UnetStack is one, which is an efficient and well-known tool available for simulating UASN, with significant benefits. But, the present UnetStack does not provide direct functionality for monitoring the energy of nodes during simulations, which is crucial. This paper presents the design and implementation of the residual energy model framework in UnetStack. Additionally, through the experimental simulations, the number of frames transmitted & received, and the depletion of node energy over time presented. Further, the implemented energy model framework able the researchers in the design of energy-aware routing protocols and load balancing methods.