Throughput Maximization for USV-Enabled Underwater Wireless Networks Under Jamming Attack

In underwater wireless networks, unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) can be deployed to assist in long-range communication between underwater nodes, enhancing communication quality and reliability due to their high maneuverability and mobility. However, the open nature of underwater acoustic communication makes underwater wireless networks vulnerable to malicious jamming attacks. To address this issue, this article proposes an algorithm based on a double deep Q network (D2QN) to jointly optimize the USV’s trajectory and transmit power, effectively resist malicious underwater jamming attacks, and maximize the achievable end-to-end throughput of the system. The numerical results obtained from our experiments provide strong evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed joint optimization algorithm.