Abstract
Deriving a mobility model that mimics the motion of freely floating underwater acoustic sensor networks is of great importance as it greatly impacts the networking protocols efficiency. In this paper, we further investigate the mobility model proposed in [31] for freely floating and randomly deployed underwater acoustic sensors, where each sensor will end up sinking at a given depth and then follow a given trajectory due to the waves currents in addition to the sensor gravitational weight along with the buoyant force and the water resistance. Indeed, in this work we study the impact of the water velocity on the network connectivity and coverage. Along with the work proposed in [31], our study aims at providing the underwater networking community with a clearer understanding of the mobility challenges of freely floating underwater sensor networks that can be exploited to conceive more realistic communication protocols.