Localization schemes for underwater wireless sensor networks: Survey

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) enable a variety of applications such as fish farming and water quality monitoring. One of the critical tasks in such networks is localization. Location information can be used in sensor networks for several purposes such as (i) data tagging in which sensed information is not useful for the application unless the location of the sensed information is known, (ii) tracking objects or (iii) multi-hop data transmission in geographic routing protocols. Since GPS does not work well underwater, several localization schemes have been developed for UWSNs. This paper surveys the state-of-the-art of localization schemes for UWSNs. It describes the existing schemes and classifies them into different categories. Furthermore, the paper discusses some open research issues that need further investigation in this area.