Routing protocol method for underwater acoustic sensor networks based on layering and source location privacy

A routing protocol method for underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) based on layering and source location privacy (LSLP) s, comprising:

• selecting randomly a proxy area by a source node;
• delivering a packet from the source node to the proxy area through a forwarding probability-based multipath routing algorithm;
• and giving a layer-based priority to candidate neighbor nodes to alleviate a long detour problem;
• selecting randomly a proxy node in the proxy area;
• delivering the packet from the proxy node to a sink node through the forwarding probability-based multipath routing algorithm;
• and
• repeating the previous steps;
• wherein the step of selecting randomly the proxy node comprises:
• (a) establishing a three-dimensional (3D) coordinate system with the sink node as a center node;
• making position information of the sink node public across a network;
• and dividing a 3D underwater space into four quadrants based on the 3D coordinate system;
• (b) converting position information of an underwater node into a 3D coordinate centered on the sink node during a network initialization process;
• (c) assuming that a layer of the source node is Ls, such that a layer of the proxy area is expressed as:
• Lp=INT(Ls/2);
• wherein Lp is the layer of the proxy area;
• and the proxy area contains all nodes in the layer Lp;
• (d) dividing the proxy area into a first subarea, a second subarea, a third subarea, and a fourth subarea by the 3D coordinate system;
• wherein if the source node is in one of the four quadrants, proxy areas in the other three of the four quadrants become candidate proxy areas;
• and a random number Q is set in a range from 0 to 3, and a target proxy area is selected according to a value of the random number Q;
• and
• (e) after the packet is delivered from the source node to a first node in the target proxy area, randomly selecting the number of hops of the packet in the proxy area based on the random number Q, wherein a node reached by a last hop is the proxy node.