Underwater Acoustic Sensors Data Collection in the Robotic Vessels as-a-Service Project

The Robotic Vessels as-a-Service (RoboVaaS) project aims to provide innovative services for the shipping activities and near-shore maritime operations such as ship-hull and quay walls inspection, anti-grounding service and environmental data collection. To this end, both underwater and above water communications will be employed. In this paper, we designed a polling based MAC layer protocol (UW-POLLING) for a data-muling scenario, in which a cluster-head node moves collecting data from sensor nodes deployed in the network and, optionally, forwards the data to a sink node directly connected to shore via an above water wireless link. We analyzed the protocol performance employing the DESERT Underwater Network Simulator by including the port of Hamburg bathymetry in the World Ocean Simulation System (WOSS).