Adaptive Fuzzy Routing Protocol for Dynamic Underwater Sensor Networks

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) present unique operational challenges which are different from terrestrial counterparts. The acoustic communication introduces propagation delays which are up to five times longer than RF signals, bandwidth constraints limit data rates to only tens of kilobits per second, and the network topologies shift continuously because of water currents and node mobility. In this paper, we introduce UWF-RPL (Under Water Fuzzy-Routing Protocol for Low power and Lossy networks), which combines the fuzzy logic decisionmaking with RPL framework for addressing these constraints in effective way. The protocol evaluates four critical parameters during the route selection: remaining energy levels, node depth positioning, signal quality metrics (RSSI/ETX ratio), and latency measurements. We performed comprehensive testing across networks ranging from 100 to 500 nodes in realistic underwater scenarios. Our approach demonstrates the convergence improvements of 10-23%, energy savings of 15%, delivery ratio enhancements of 17%, and latency reductions of 24% when we compare against DBR, EEDBR, standard RPL, and other state-of-the-art implementations. The protocol exhibits the superior scalability and maintains reliable operation in dynamic underwater environments, which makes it suitable for long-term oceanographic monitoring and marine exploration applications.