3D E-CRUSE: Energy-based throughput analysis of three dimensional underwater network using RF communication

•Radio frequency based communication provides high data rates in underwater environment.•Underwater RF networks are to be analyzed using energy model for its deployment and management.•Throughput in terms of probability of successful transmission of a packet from node to buoy.•Throughput of 3D architecture is up to 3 times more than the 2D architecture.•Network throughput is less for the waters having more conductivity. Monitoring the ocean shore continuously in real-time is essential for important applications like port security, coastal surveillance, assistance in navigation etc. This needs a high data rate for the transmission of data from underwater nodes to the surface. Acoustic communication is the traditional approach for underwater networks and offers long-range communication. However, the achievable data rate using acoustic communication is in the order of kbps only. Radio frequency (RF) based communication performs better than acoustic communication and provides a data rate of up to 100 Mbps in an underwater environment. Nonetheless, due to high propagation loss, the communication range using RF is limited to a few meters. More importantly, the underwater nodes are battery-operated and recharging the battery is difficult. Therefore, it is imperative that underwater RF networks are analyzed using an accurate energy model for its deployment and management. This requires that the underwater network is properly modeled. In this work, a cluster-based three-dimensional (3D) architecture for underwater networks using RF communication is proposed. Importantly, the energy-based throughput of the 3D architecture using multi-hop communication, 3D E-CRUSE, is obtained using a mathematical model. The throughput is then observed for various water environments, various parameters and the results are compared to the existing two-dimensional architecture. It is observed that the throughput of the proposed 3D architecture is up to 3 times more than the 2D architecture.