Poster Abstract: A Frugal Time-Division MAC Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Networks

In UnderWater Acoustic Networks (UWANs), a packet's propagation delay generally exceeds its transmission delay, often by an order of magnitude. Time-division MAC protocols designed for RF networks waste at least one propagation delay of time for every packet transmitted due to medium acquisition via RTS/CTS or the guard times required in TDMA. Though negligible in RF networks, this waste is excessive in UWANs due to the long propagation delays. While an improvement over RF-designed protocols, existing UWAN time-division MAC protocols still have poor channel utilization due to this waste, or incur other undesirable costs.