Sea depth measurement with restricted floating sensors

Abstract

Sea depth monitoring is a critical task for ensuring safe operation of harbors. Traditional schemes largely rely on labor-intensive work and expensive hardware. This study explores the possibility of deploying networked sensors on the surface of the sea, measuring and reporting the sea depth of given areas. We propose a Restricted Floating Sensors (RFS) model in which sensor nodes are anchored to the sea bottom, floating within a restricted area. Distinguished from traditional stationary or mobile sensor networks, the RFS network consists of sensor nodes with restricted mobility. We construct the network model and elaborate the corresponding localization problem. We show that by locating such RFS sensors, the sea depth can be estimated without the help of any extra ranging devices. A prototype system with 25 Telos sensor nodes is deployed to validate this design. We also examine the efficiency and scalability of this design through large-scale simulations.