Enabling Reliable Communication in Internet of Underwater Things: Applications, Challenges and Future Directions

The Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) is the connection of underwater objects/sensor nodes to gather the information about various attributes. The collection of data is performed by the sensing nodes while they are deployed in underwater scenario and the sensed data is sent to the sink node having acoustic and radio modems through the acoustic channel. The data forwarding in the underwater scenarios follow a particular routing mechanism to address the concern of limited energy of sensor nodes. In this paper, we address the application, challenges and also the brief review of various routing algorithms proposed for Underwater Wireless Sensor Network (UWSN). This study will not only cover the state-of-the-art proposed routing techniques for UWSN but also the fundamental concepts of UWSN. It is discerned from the proposed study that there is a need to develop energy efficient data routing techniques for UWSNs to increase the lifespan of underwater sensor nodes.