Placement of Multiple Mobile Data Collectors in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

For the sake of maximizing the network lifetime, we propose a novel placement scheme for mobile data collectors in underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs). Our scheme is based on a 3D architecture, in which on-the-surface data collectors gather data from underwater sensors and relay them to an on-shore sink. We divide the lifetime of the network into fixed length rounds and move the data collectors to new locations at the beginning of each round. We formulate the problem as an integer linear program (ILP) and use an ILP solver to find the optimal placement of data collectors together with the multi-hop routing paths to deliver data from underwater sensors to data collectors. Our work is a pioneering effort in the placement of mobile data collectors in three-dimensional UASNs. Comprehensive experiments show that our scheme prolongs the lifetime of the network significantly as compared to other data collector placement schemes.