Implementation of a distributed time based simulation of underwater acoustic networking using Java

Abstract

Underwater Acoustic Networks (UAN) have two immutable obstacles to overcome; the hostile environment in which it must operate; and the combination of the propagation speed of sound in water, and the latency in communication that this produces, and the dynamic nature of the water column with respect to its attenuation of the sound signal. These combined issues make it very costly and time consuming to setup a UAN just to test new protocols that may or may not be able to mitigate the limitations of this environment. There exists, then, a need for an ability to test a new protocol without the overhead of creating a physical UAN. The goal of this thesis is to provide a more hospitable, adaptable, flexible, and easily useable tool with which to test new protocols for UANs, as well as providing the ability for the Physics field to test new physical layer encodings. This simulation environment will provide the glue, or bridge, between the two disciplines by working as a common tool for both.