A Study of Standardizing Frequencies Using Channel Raster for Underwater Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose the method to standardize acoustic frequencies for underwater wireless acoustic sensor networks (UWASNs) by applying the channel raster used in the terrestrial mobile communications. The standardization process includes: (1) Setting the available acoustic frequency band where a channel raster is employed via the frequency specification analysis of the state-of-the art underwater acoustic communication modems. (2) Defining the center frequencies and the channel numbers as a function of channel raster, and the upper limit of the value of channel raster. (3) Determining the value of the channel raster suitable for the available acoustic frequency band via simulations. To set the value, three performance metrics are considered: the collision rate, the idle spectrum rate, and the receiver computational complexity. The simulation results show that the collision rate and the idle spectrum rate according to the value of channel raster have a trade-off relationship, but the influence of channel raster on the two performance metrics is insignificant. However, the receiver computational complexity is enhanced remarkably as the value of channel raster increases. Therefore, setting the value of channel raster close to its upper limit is the most adequate in respect of mitigating the occurrence of a collision and enhancing the reception performance. The standardized frequencies based on channel raster can guarantee the frequency compatibility required for the emerging technologies like the Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) or the underwater cognitive radio, but also improves the network performance by avoiding the arbitrary use of frequencies.