Underwater Sensor Network Simulator

Underwater sensor network simulator is merely an analytical tool, which is generally used to analyze the network performance of the WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) used underwater. The underwater sensor networks majorly use in defense applications or for maritime purposes. It can also use to monitor the behaviour of ocean species along with the help of GPS for research purposes. 

“Marine is an ever-flourishing field like oceanic resources, whereas adding technology in the field unlock innovative research aspects”

The prime duty of the underwater network simulator is to run the simulation process through its various metrics and parameters, to measure the network performance applied underwater. This type of simulator has various significances for underwater purposes as defined in the following.

“This article further focuses on the important and research aspects of the underwater network simulator and it is intended to display our simulation tools and our experimental skills developed with the help of our simulating components and our research suggestions in the relevant field!!”

Uses of Underwater Sensor Network Simulator

• Detecting various security attacks and constructs security protocols to counteract service Denial attacks in UWSN
• Constructing UWSN fault tolerant protocols to tolerate delay and disruption
• Personalized improvement and structure in UWSN simulator
• Optimizing strong UWSN architecture 

In addition to the numerous usages of the UWSN, we provide you the number of rising challenges that a researcher must undergo are given below to the best of our knowledge.

Challenges of Underwater Sensor Network Simulator

• Lifespan usage of sensor network underwent numerous deployments
• Energy management methods
• Circulating clocks for synchronization to obtain perfect data reports
• Placing each node according to its moving places to decide the time of deployment
• Distributed sensor nodes extraction of reliability and data

We address these challenges through

• Sleep scheduling/off operation of sensor nodes
• Scheduled, multiple data access
• Bringing new protocols to sync high-latency times
• Implementing acoustic communication of low-power

Besides the challenges and our approaches towards the research issues, we have to provide you our major investigating research gaps/areas for simulation and we also include our suggestion of the above subdomains of UWSN as given below,

Current Research Areas of Underwater Network Simulator

• Extreme-low duty cycle operation, energy-aware system structure of data caching and forwarding processes
• MAC protocol of structure, ranging and time synchronization
• Self- configuring network, underwater network and protocols
• Sensor node acoustic communication

We can perform the research in the UWSN simulators along with their respective parameters for every following network feature. 

• Energy consumption – acoustic waves consumes high level of energy consumption
• Waves utilization – acoustic waves utilization
• Fault rate – usage of acoustic waves results increased fault rate
• Bandwidth – usage of acoustic waves results low range bandwidth

The above is our sample simulation results performed on the various conditions of UWSN networks. Apart from the simulation results and the research topics, we are enlisting you the simulation tools and their importance, and ways to choose the best simulation tools.

How to choose the best simulator for underwater sensor network?

Using the existing simulator is not possible for the UWSN simulation. We need to modify the simulator according to custom underwater scenarios. In order to model the UWSN, we need to concentrate on its three-dimensional deployment, acoustic channel features, and node mobility. These can also be the reason that the existing simulators don’t have such amenities. These are the needs of the simulator to perform effective underwater simulation.

           Another limitation of the UWSN simulator is the implementation. For the research of UWSN simulation, it deserves high cost to deploy an entire testbed to validate network protocol or algorithm of difficult network structure and data links. To face these implementation challenges, we need to recreate the actual underwater condition without losing the simplification. So it is important to choose the appropriate simulation tools for research purposes.

NS2: in order to use this simulation tool, we need to alter all its sub-components such as the propagation model and channel characteristics. The sub-simulator of the Ns2 is as follows

• SUNSET: apart from the simulating usage, The SUNSET can be used for the real-time testing and emulation. This simulation tool is based on Ns2. In the emulation approach, we can interface the SUNSET in accordance with real external hardware. Other functions of SUNSET follow
  • Contains utilities module
  • Reduces the gap between actual and simulation results with the help of timing module
  • Featured with optimized interference model
  • Also functions as real time scheduler
  • Use multiple threads for emulation mode.
• Aqua-Sim: this simulator based on NS-2 and it is notable for its open source feature. It was advanced by UWSN Lab for research purpose. Aqua-Sim can successfully deal the reduction of propagation model, acoustic signal, and packet collisions. Thorps is the tempering adopted model and the other features are
  • Follows an object-oriented design style
  • Supports three-dimensional deployment
  • Similar and independent like CMU wireless simulation package.
• WOSS: known as World Ocean Simulation System, the integrating software is Bellhop ray tracing to get effective acoustic propagation. It limits the simulation in small network density areas, incorporated with world databases for environmental parameters. The user can simulate any geographical location, and the running time.
• Aqua-3D: it is an animator of Aqua-Sim; it needs either ATI graphics card or NVIDIA. We can adjust, save and recall loading the implementing scenario. Other features are
  • Supports three-dimensional visualization
  • Afforded with simple GUI control
• AquaTools: is an Ns2 based simulator. It permits the user to select the apt channel models and underwater propagation. There are three various channel models in this simulator designed to analyze the node distances, transmission frequency, depth, acidity and salinity. The elements of this simulation package can be modified according to the environmental need. The components are
  • Propagation
  • Channel
  • Physical
  • Modulation
• USNet: it is a user friendly tool, which is also known as Underwater Sensor Network Simulation Tool; it provides real-time simulation and supports three- dimensional deployment. Most of the USNet features are scripted in C++. Uniquely performs multiple tasks in parallel. Apt to deal with cluster based routing protocols.

The NS3 UAN framework: used in modeling underwater conditions. The supporting models of this simulator are ideal channel model, thorp model, and Bellhop model. It permits the user to program the AUV to navigate over a path of way-points, control various AUV parameters such as velocity, depth, direction, and pitch. The user can choose the acoustic channel and the matching tempering model. It has four parts, the channel, PHY, MAC and AUV models

• Jaltarang: its optimization based on the NS-3.14, and initially it is based on the NS-3. Now it can be operated in a GUI controller, which was previously installed at the topof NS-3. Its striking features are
  • Trace file and command-line/file output
  • Visualization module
  • Mobility module
  • Network layer
  • MAC layer
  • Physical layer
  • Localization module
  • Topology Module
  • GUI/Command line access
• AquaSim in NS3: it was previously integrated with the NS2 simulator used for simulating underwater Wireless Sensor networks. but currently available for Ns3 simulator
  • OS Used: Ubuntu 16.04 or Linux Mint 18.1
  • Simulation Tool Used: ns-3.27

QualNet: affords platform to any type of network to perform planning, testing and training network behavior. It possesses GUI, an inbuilt statistical propagation model. It is optimized for both wired and wireless networks. Qualnet is one among the best choice for Underwater Sensor Network Simulator. Implementing QualNet is a tough work as it needs to model all the field features and channel properties.

OPNET: one of the best network modeling and simulator tool used to debug and analysis. OPNET is based on GUI, even it is best; it is need to modify the 14 pipeline stages. Mainly in the radio transceiver pipeline to get precise channel model. The stages are

• The sixth stage (propagation delay)
• The eighth stage (Receiver Power)
• tenth stage (for Background noise)

Aqua Glomo: this simulator established to perform large communication networks. The physical layer and network layer packages are promoted to structure a matching network for UWSN. The language used in Aqua Glomo is PARSEC, a C-based language. For its physical layer, the attenuation model is Thorp’s model for distance and frequency. And in the network layer, RMTG is implemented. The adopted mobility model is Random-Waypoint. Aqua Glomo is the updated version of GLOMOSIM.

Desert: it sustains test bed experiments, simulation and emulation. Desert is based on ns-miracle outline. It contains c/ c++ libraries to support the strategies of innovative protocols. It has two modules in the application layer uwcbr and uwvbr to handle traffic. The two modules in transport layer afford flow control, error control, multiplexing and demultiplexing process and mobility node for both 2D and 3D situations.

UWSim: it has a good configurable interface, and it utilized the OpenSceneGraph and osgOcean libraries. It also interfaces multiple AI, and sustains the dynamic simulation of rigid body motion.

Aqua-net mate: it is a type of networking equipment, apt to modify the embedded systems. It enables both the emulation and simulation mode switching and make online accessible of both the aqua-net and aqua-net-mate.

AUVNetSim: based on the language Python, it is an open source model. It has a way of stating the acoustic channels as the networking protocols and parameters into packages and they are directly applied or modified. It has inbuilt physical layer of Thorp model, so it disables the modeling for different conditions and varies the result from the real time simulation.

The above mentioned are our best observation on the various simulators used for the underwater sensor networks simulation. In addition to the above part, we provide you the significant simulation parameters for underwater sensor network simulator.

Important Simulation Parameters for Underwater Sensor Network

• Obstacles
• Number of anchor points
• Moving speed
• Radio range
• Threshold for the length of a chord
• Beacon scheduling

The above list is the six major parameters used to analyze the UWSN performance. We can set different scenarios for evaluation by using these six parameters. Other than the above-specified parameters, the other common parameters are Channel utilization, Target packet size, Target Network Load, Network Throughput, Energy consumption, End-to-End Delay, Collision Rate, Possible Collision, Concurrent transmissions, Network Topology

Best Underwater Sensor Network Project using AquaSim using NS3.27

Title: Aquasim based underwater secure data transmission: an effective way of simulation  

Step 1: Network creation – generating an underwater sensor network simulator of 150 sensor nodes, I server and 1 sink node

Step 2: Network nodes deployment – Deploying the network nodes at the depth of 300m

Step 3: Multi factor registration and authentication using hashing and signature generation – PUF and IP address parameters are taken into account for authentication.

• Algorithms used: SHA-512 algorithm and Signature Generation Algorithm: bliss algorithm

Step 4: Clustering underwater sensor nodes. (1). Node energy statues, (2). Distance, (3), Link quality and (4). Direction

• Algorithms used: weighted sum model

Step 5: Secure routing – Three objective functions defined

• Low distance & high energy
• High available bandwidth and high energy
• High trust and low queue length
• Algorithms used: AODV + Particle Swarm Optimization

Signature Generation Algorithm: messages are signed using public key (bliss algorithm)

Step 6: Data transmission by optimum routing

Detecting the Aquasim based route among the sensor and server node

Step 7: Finding the simulation performance by following metrics

• PDR
• Throughput
• Attack prediction ‘rate
• End-to-end delay
• Routing overhead
• Route acquisition delay
• Security strength

Step 8: Attack mitigation- DAG blockchain (destination node verifies signature and authentication)

Attacks mitigation

• Black hole attack
• Gray hole attack
• Timing attack
• Intruder attack
• DDoS attack

Generally, the network simulation is one central area of attention for any researcher who tries to verify and validate a protocol or an algorithm in any kind of network without actual deployment. But in the case of Underwater Sensor Network Simulator research, deploying the whole testbed to recreate and to evaluate and authorize the results in a summarized manner. Thus the researchers need to stimulate the UWSN effectively. You will get nothing to worry about on the deployment and the resultant outcomes. We have a simulator, which is the core concept of this process that provides the identical result to the real-time simulation. You can come to us at any level of your project!!

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