CEER: Cooperative Energy-Efficient Routing Mechanism for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks Using Clusters

Underwater acoustic sensor networks (UWASNs) aim to find varied offshore ocean monitoring and exploration applications. In most of these applications, the network is composed of several sensor nodes deployed at different depths in the water. Sensor nodes located at depth on the seafloor cannot invariably communicate with nodes close to the surface level; these nodes need multihop communication facilitated by a suitable routing scheme. In this research work, a Cluster-based Cooperative Energy Efficient Routing (CEER) mechanism for UWSNs is proposed to overcome the shortcomings of the Co-UWSN and LEACH mechanisms. The optimal role of clustering and cooperation provides load balancing and improves the network profoundly. The simulation results using MATLAB show better performance of CEER routing protocol in terms of various parameters as compared to Co-UWSN routing protocol, i.e., the average end-to-end delay of CEER was 17.39, Co-UWSN was 55.819 and LEACH was 70.08. In addition, the average total energy consumption of CEER was 9.273, Co-UWSN was 12.198, and LEACH was 45.33. The packet delivery ratio of CEER was 53.955, CO-UWSN was 42.047, and LEACH was 30.31. The stability period CEER was 130.9, CO-UWSN was 129.3, and LEACH was 119.1. The obtained results maximized the lifetime and improved the overall performance of the CEER routing protocol.