Multihop optical wireless underwater communication links utilizing various routing protocols for IoUT applications

In the rapidly advancing field of underwater communication, Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) has emerged as a superior alternative to traditional radio frequency and acoustic methods, offering high-speed data transmission with reduced attenuation. This paper investigates the performance of multi-hop OWC links, focusing on their application in the Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT), a key enabler for smart underwater networks. We explore various routing protocols, including epidemic, depth-based, and focused beam routing, to assess their ability to maintain reliable and efficient communication across multi-hop networks in challenging underwater environments. Through extensive simulations, we evaluate critical performance metrics such as routing overhead, packet delivery ratio, average hop count, end-to-end delay, and throughput under varying conditions, including different water types, node densities, and beam divergence angles. Our contributions include a comprehensive comparison of these routing protocols, offering new insights into the trade-offs between energy efficiency, scalability, and communication reliability in underwater OWC networks. The results demonstrate the potential of multi-hop OWC links to enhance connectivity in IoUT applications, such as environmental monitoring, underwater exploration, and autonomous underwater vehicles, where reliable and efficient communication is paramount. This research provides a foundation for the development of optimized underwater networks, paving the way for the future of IoUT.