Energy saving in Underwater Wireless Optical
Sensor Networks
Victor Guerra, Jose Rabadan, Julio Rufo and Rafael Perez-Jimenez
Institute for Technological Development and Innovation in Communications
Email: vguerra@idetic.eu
AbstractPower control algorithms are a well-known strategy
to optimize SNR in highly interfered environments, such as
Underwater Wireless Optical Communication systems . Further-
more, sensor nodes, which are battery-powered, have expen-
sive replacement costs. Hence, strategies to reduce the power
consumption are mandatory in this kind of device, and power
control algorithms can be energy-optimized. In this paper, we
present a power control algorithm which introduces several
enhancements to the classic Newton-Raphson gradient-descent
algorithm (equivalent to a LMS algorithm)
I. I NTRODUCTION
Energy efficiency is one of the most important aspects in
underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSN). The power
consumption of battery-powered isolated nodes defines their
lifespan, and taking into account the high replacement costs,
it is a primary minimization objective. Generally, the power
consumption of a node is a sum of partial contributions.
The main consumptions are related to processing (CPU
and control), communication interfaces and payload. This
last aspect can widely vary depending on the purpose of
the deployed node. For monitoring applications, the payload
comprises sensors and acquisition circuitry, which can be
normally neglected respect to communications. However, for
applications where actuation is needed, the payload power
consumption may be the primary source of energy usage.
Energy efficiency can be improved in different manners.
Using a layered approach, the best options to enhance the
efficiency are the physical and the medium access layer.
Regarding the VLC physical layer, modulations and encod-
ing with pulsed shapes are normally better alternatives than
continuous waveforms such as OFDM or CSK. However, these
types of signals can be Pulse Width Modulated in order to take
advantage of high efficiency nonlinear drivers [tu congreso de
OFDM PWM]. Therefore, between PHY and MAC layers,
power control algorithms are an interesting option to adapt
the emitted power of the isolated nodes and hence, reduce the
power consumption.
Power control is the selection of the transmission output
power in a communications system, attending to an optimiza-
tion criterion. This criterion is normally a combination of an
energy minimization and the satisfaction of a minimum per-
formance on the receiver. Traditionally, PCAs have been used
to maximize the SNR whilst keeping the overall interference
below a threshold in wireless communication channels, such as
UMTS [148]. In this case, since all the signals are transmitted
at the same time, each one spread by its corresponding
orthogonal code, if there is no power control, the interference
level may increase up to harmful levels, dramatically reducing
the BER. In the case of UWOC, PCAs are not proposed as
SNR-improving techniques, but as energy-saving algorithms.
BER is important since it partially denes the number of packet
retransmissions, which is very power consuming. However,
the possibility to adapt the transmission power to an optimum
value, in terms of energy, has more weight in the design of
unpowered optical nodes. Almost any energy-saving protocol
or technique is justied in unpowered sensor networks, because
the extension of the nodes lifespan dramatically reduces the
replacement costs.
Another consideration, taking into account the energy sav-
ing idea, is the fact that optical emitters and receivers present
a better response to long wavelengths than to short ones.
Therefore, although the best transmission windows for UWOC
are generally located at the blue-green region, the commented
response of the devices makes red transmissions more energy-
efficient below a critical distance dcrit. In this work, a new
adaptive-step algorithm, which reduces the dependence of the
channels variability knowledge it proposed. It basically in-
troduces an adaptive-damping version that algorithm adapting
the damping factor automatically. Next sections are organized
as follows. Next sections are organized as follows. Section
2 present the critic distance calculation for multi wavelength
systems. Section 3 compares different PCA and explains the
changes introduced in the proposed algorithm. In Section 4
we present the results corresponding to the application of
different PCA to variable UWOC scenarios and demonstrate
the advantages of the proposed scheme. Finally in section 4
the work conclusions are discussed.
II. C RITICAL DISTANCE
The SNR of an UWOC link is dened by Equation 1.
2
(()Ptx |elec H(0, )R())
SN R() = 2 + 2 (1)
sh th
() is the efficiency of the emitter, defined as the prod-
uct of the emitter device optical efficiency opt () and the
efficiency of the transmission driver driver , Ptx |elec is the
electrical power consumed by the transmitter, H(0, ) is the
channel gain, R() is the responsivity of the photoreceiver
2 2
at the wavelength . sh and th are the receivers shot
and thermal noises respectively. In UWOC, the background
noise is the sum of the effects of sunlight and the seawater
blackbody radiation. Generally, the latter is neglected due to
the low temperatures, whilst the first one losses importance
as the depth increases. In this work, these noise sources are
being neglected for simplicity in the analysis without loss of
generality.
If the ratio of the SNR induced by two different emitters
with the same power consumption at two different wavelengths
were introduced, the following merit figure could be defined
(Equation 2).

 2  2 2

SN R(1 ) (1 )H(0, 1 )R(1 ) sh (0 ) + th
= 2 ( ) + 2
SN R(0 ) (0 )H(0, 0 )R(0 ) sh 1 th
(2)
The critical distance dcrit is defined as the distance at which
the merit figure becomes unitary. Taking into account the
typical modified extinction approximation used in UWOC [?], Fig. 1. Scenario under consideration
the ratio of channel gains would depend on the difference of
the effective extinction coefficients, as shows Equation 3. of channel information is necessary to estimate with a lower
H(0, 1 ) error the required output power, but it also adds an error source
e(c(1 )c(0 ))dlink (3) that should be taken into account. Generally, a power control
H(0, 0 )
algorithm is derived from an optimization problem of the type
Introducing Equation 3 into Equation 2 for the critical defined in Equation 5:
distance and solving, it yields:
  X
1 (0 )R(0 ) min Pi
dcrit = ln (4)
c(1 ) c(0 ) (1 )R(1 ) i
subject to:
This critical distance describes the range from which it
2
is better to transmit at wavelength 1 in terms of power (Pi gii )
2 Ki (5)
consumption (from 0 to dcrit meters). 2 + 2qB
P P
N j Pj gij + j6=i (Pj gij )
III. P OWER CONTROL ALGORITHMS 2
N is the sum of the receivers inherent noise powers
There are different taxonomies of power control algorithms, and Ki is the SINR threshold for the i-th channel. gij is
depending on the classification criterion. For instance, if each the channel gain, including the responsivity, between the i-th
node takes its own decisions the algorithm is distributed receiver and the j-th emitter. Note that the quadratic term of
whilst on the other case is centralized. If there is channel the denominator is the optical interference term, whilst the
status exchange between nodes, ergo, there is an information linear term is the sum of all the shot noises due to both
feedback, the algorithm is closed-loop. On the contrary, it is interference and desired signals. These last two terms are
open-loop. Finally, depending on how is calculated the step nullified in the proposed scenario, due to the orthogonality
size of the iterative power control process, the algorithms can of each channel after the use of a TDMA scheme, yielding
be fixed-step, variable-step or adaptive-step. the following simplified version of the convex minimization
In this work, a star-like network topology has been consid- problem (Equation 6).
ered. This kind of network is a very general approach, but
it is enough to study the impact of PCAs. Furthermore, a
min Pi
TDMA MAC protocol has been considered in order to simplify
the optimization of the SNR and to isolate the study of the subject to:
2
feasible N channels of a general scheme. Figure 1 represents (P g)
the scenario under consideration, which may comprise a main 2 K (6)
N + 2qBP g
energy-unlimited node and a bundle of remote nodes.
Generally, the power is minimized iteratively as shows
In addition, the studied algorithms are centralized and
Equation 7.
closed-loop. The centralization of the algorithms has been pro-
posed to reduce the remote nodes complexity. Furthermore,
P (i+1) = P (i) + P (i) (7)
the estimation of the links performance takes place at the
main-node side whilst the downlink (main node to remote P (i+1) is the next transmission power and P (i) is the
node) is always carried out at maximum power. The feedback calculated step. Depending on how this step is calculated, the

Fig. 2. Proposed Power Control Algorithm procedure
algorithm would be fixed-step, variable-step or adaptive-step.
Other important aspect of the algorithms is how the SNR
and the proposed modification to enhance the PCA perfor-
mance.
A. Adaptive-step algorithm
Adaptive-step algorithms modify the power correction step
P (i) at each iteration depending on the received power and
the distance to the optimum value. In order to obtain an
adaptive method, a gradient descent strategy can be applied
to Equation 6. For instance, a Newton-Raphson method may
be used, defining an optimization function F (P ) = 0 after the
mentioned condition, yielding:
P (i+1) = P (i) + P (i)
F (P (i) )
condition is estimated. The most common strategies are the P (i) =  (8)
F (P ) 
following:
BER. BER is directly related to the SNR through the
complementary error function. As the modulation or
encoding spectral efficiency increases, the BER becomes
more sensitive to the SNR. The main disadvantage of this
indirect estimation is the requirement of long integration
periods to retrieve a sufficient amount of data to perform
the calculation.
Direct SNR estimation. The SNR is the ratio between the
squared expected value and the variance of a signal. This
estimation needs a high amount of samples to present
a reliable confidence interval. However, if a soft signal
detection were performed using a DSP or a FPGA, this
estimation could be real-time performed.
Received power estimation. For situations in which the
shot noise could be neglected, the SNR condition can be
directly calculated using Equation X+3. Furthermore, this
technique is suitable for low-power devices, since only a
few amount of samples per frame are needed. Low pass
filtering may be used to reduce noise before sampling,
or a few samples from a long-duration synchronization
header could be acquired to estimate the received power.
Some of the proposed centralized algorithms need knowl-
edge of the remote nodes emission parameters: energy ef-
ficiency, allowed power codes, transimpedance conversion
factor, etcetera. Therefore, an initialization stage to retrieve
the necessary information is needed before the execution of
the PCA. Figure 2 depicts the stages of the proposed PCAs.
The energy saving capability of the used PCA can be dramat-
ically enhanced if the aforementioned critical distance were
taken into consideration by means of a wavelength switching.
The proposed PCA workflow only takes into consideration
switching between two predefined wavelengths. Nonetheless,
the procedure could be easily extended to a bigger set of
colors. Note that after M iterations of the PCA, the currently
unused wavelengths are tested in order to find the best option
and adapt in scenarios with relative movement.
In this work, an adaptive-damping-and-step algorithm has
P 
P =P i
is a relaxation coefficient to smooth the convergence
of the output power (damping factor. From the optimization
2
restriction, and naming K0 = K1 /N , it can be demonstrated
that:
P (i) g (i) K0
P (i) = (9)
g (i)
Introducing Equation 9 in Equation 8, it yields the final
form of the adaptive-step algorithm. Note that g (i) is the
estimated channel gain at each iteration, this gain depends
on the variability of the channel and it affects the after-
convergence variability of the algorithm.
K0
P (i+1) = (1 )P (i) + (10)
g (i)
The resulting algorithm presents the same form as a LMS
algorithm. Furthermore, it can be observed that this algorithm
needs the estimation of the channel gain. Introducing an
output power code in the header of the transmitted frame, the
receiver would be able to estimate the channel gain according
to the measured received power. However, this procedure
introduces an extra error source, since low SNR situations
could generate bit errors and hence, unrealistic channel gains.
The convergence speed is the best in this algorithm, whilst
the after-convergence variability depends on the channel gain
estimations. However, to ensure that this algorithm converges,
the damping factor must be bounded. Extending the iterative
equation of the output power from i = 0 to i = n+1 it yields:
n
X (1 )j
P (n+1) = (1 )n+1 P (0) + K0 (11)
j=0
g (nj)
This last summation needs to be converging to ensure the
stability. The simplest weak condition is to force each term to
be smaller than the previous one. Mathematically:
been developed, using a traditional adaptive-step algorithm as  
baseline. The following subsections comments this baseline g (i) > g (i+1) g (i)  (12)
 
 It must be taken into account that g (i) is a random process 0.85
Evolution of the expected value
0.03
Evolution of the variance

that describes the behavior of the channel gain at uncorrelated 0.8

instants. Intuitively, can be adapted to the channels random 0.025
0.75
nature regarding the expected value of the last equation,
0.7
yielding: 0.02

Var()
E[]
0.65
 
E g (i+1) g (i)  0.6 0.015
E[] >   (13)
E g (i) 0.55
0.01
0.5
It can be observed that from Equation 13, must be in
0.45 0.005
(0, 1). Furthermore, both convergence speed and variability 0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
History Size History Size
depend on . Large values of filter the output power and
reduce the convergence time. On the other side, small values Fig. 3. Relationship between the expected value of (left) and its variance
increment the variability and reduce the convergence speed. (right) with the History Size
The following algorithm tries to obtain a compromise solution
on both parameters.
of samples. Rearranging the terms of Equation 14, it can be
B. Adaptive-damping-and-step algorithm shown that follows a distribution which is related to the
The last subsection introduced adaptive-step algorithms, but reciprocal of the ratio /. Therefore, the expected value of
the convergence needs a high knowledge of the channels can be approximated by:
variability. Regarding the observed variability of the UWOC
channel and the wide range of phenomena that may occur, an 2
E[] < (17)
adaptive-damping version of the last algorithm is proposed. 1 + E[]/E[]
This algorithm adapts the damping factor automatically.
Analyzing Equation 13 it can be noticed that it expresses the Obviously, an error is being committed due to the nonzero
variability of the channel. Hence, to reduce the variability of correlation between mean and standard deviation. However,
the algorithm, can be iteratively modified with a parameter empirical observations of the correlation coefficients between
modeling this variability. Equation 14 shows the iterative the two variables suggest that the higher the degrees of
formula. freedom, the lower the correlation. Due to the elevated number
of samples needed to accurately estimate the variance of ,
the variability of is very sensitive to the actual variability
(i) + (i)
(i+1) = of the channel. This aspect of the algorithm should be further
2 investigated to make it more robust. Figure 3 shows the values
2i
(i) = (14) of E[] and Var() for different history sizes. The values were
i + i
obtained for Scenario #2, which is the more variable of the
and are the mean and standard deviation of the channel three studied. The actual variability parameter (Equation 14) at
gain. is the estimation of the channels variability, where is which is associated was 0.8213. It can be observed that the
always lower than due to the nature of the UWOC channel. higher the History Size, the better is estimated the variability
The final value of (i) is then averaged with the estimated of the channel. However, as the History Size increases, the
variability to obtain the next iteration value. delay between abrupt changes on the channel gain and the
1) Influence of the stored history size: The Adaptive-Step- response increases.
and-Damping algorithm needs to store a certain amount of 2) Complexity comparison between algorithms: The com-
channel gain samples in order to calculate the damping factor plexity of the power control algorithm may be of capital im-
according to Equation 14. Due to the variability of the channel, portance for application with limited memory and computation
the calculated value of is subject to a correct estimation of resources. The presented memory complexity is presented in
both and . From a simple statistical analysis the mean and terms of the needed history size, whilst the computational
standard deviation of could be approximated by: complexity is detailed in sums, products and more complex
  operations (power, square root, division, etc...). Table I sum-
1 marizes the complexities.
N E[g], Var(g) (15)
N
Algorithm Memory Sums Products Other
N C N (E[g], Var(g)) (16) Fixed-Step 0 1 1 0
Variable-Step 0 2 1 0
The sample mean follows approximately a normal distri- Adaptive-Step 1 1 2 1
bution whose variance is directly reduced by the number of Proposed N 2N+3 N+4 2
samples, whilst the standard deviation follows a noncentral TABLE I
distribution with N degrees of freedom. The variance of M EMORY AND COMPUTATION COMPLEXITIES OF THE PRESENTED PCA S
a noncentral distribution also decreases with the number
 The number of operations in the ASAD algorithm increases 10
Fixed Step
linearly with N using an inefficient calculation of the mean Variable Step
8 Adaptive Step (0.25)
value and the standard deviation where at each iteration the Adaptive Step (0.75)
Adaptive-Damping

Output Power (W)

whole stored array is swept. However, there are more efficient 6

implementations that may reduce the complexity to O(log N ).

4
Furthermore, depending on the number of remote nodes han-
dled within the TDMA scheme, the memory requirements may 2

turn this algorithm not feasible. In that case, the history size
should be decreased. 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Iteration

C. Wavelength switching
Fig. 4. Evolution of the output power for Scenario #1
A merit figure to decide if a wavelength is more energy-
efficient than other was presented in Equation 2. Assuming 10
Red-Blue emitters on the UWSN remote nodes, a color Fixed Step
Variable Step
Adaptive Step (0.25)
code can be introduced in the transmitted frames header 8
Adaptive Step (0.75)
Adaptive-Damping

Output Power (W)

and a comparison step between the power consumptions at 6
each wavelength can be introduced between iterations of the
algorithm. If the red emitter presents an efficiency (1 ) and 4

the blue one an efficiency (0 ), the best emission wavelength 2

can be extracted from the following inequality.
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Iteration
1 1
(1 ) P (1 )|opt g(1 ) < (0 ) P (0 )opt g(0 ) (18)
Fig. 5. Evolution of the output power for Scenario #2
This inequality relates the received electrical power and the
power consumption of the emitter at each wavelength. During
the decision process, the current tuple (P (i) , g (i) , (i )) is It can be observed that Fixed-Step and Variable-Step al-
compared to a reference tuple (previously stored) at the other gorithms present a very reduced variability, however, their
wavelength. Since the algorithm is subject to estimation errors, convergence iteration is several times greater than the adaptive
this procedure must be performed periodically. Note that g algorithms. Regarding Adaptive-Step, the results suggest that
contains also the responsivity of the receiver. the compromise between variability and speed is highly depen-
dent on . This dependency is eliminated using the Adaptive-
IV. S IMULATION RESULTS Step-and-Damping algorithm. In addition, very low values of
In this section, several simulation results for different sce- may need a huge amount of samples to recover from a
narios are obtained. In order to model the channel, a GEV change in the mean channel gain (an increasing or decreasing
distribution has been used according to the results presented link range in a AUV-to-node communication, for instance).
in [?]. In order to test the robustness of the algorithms, The proposed algorithm presents the lowest variability even
scenarios with different variabilities have been tested (Table estimating the variability parameter using only 5 samples.
1). The emitter has a minimum output power of 10 mW and The proposed Adaptive-Step-and-Damping algorithm
a maximum of 10 W, encoded in 8 bits. presents the better performance. In order to test the
advantages of the commented wavelength switching for
Scenario multi-color emitters, a decision stage was included. The
#1 103 104 0.2 interrogation period of the wavelength-switching stage was
#2 2.5 105 105 0.3
#3 105 106 0.4 10 iterations. Figure 7 depicts the behavior of the output
TABLE II
PARAMETERS OF THE TESTED SCENARIOS
10
Fixed Step
Variable Step
9 Adaptive Step (0.25)
Adaptive Step (0.75)
Two main statistics are obtained to describe the perfor- Adaptive-Damping
Output Power (W)

8
mance of each algorithm: convergence iteration (CI) and after-
7
convergence variability (ACV). The convergence iteration is
defined as the iteration at which the output power is below 6

1.1P () . The after-convergence variability is the variance of 5

the output power after the convergence iteration. Figures 4-6

4
depict the behavior of the presented algorithms at each sce- 0 5 10 15 20 25
Iteration
30 35 40 45 50

nario (without wavelength switching). For simulation purposes

K0 = 105 . Fig. 6. Evolution of the output power for Scenario #3
 45 Several power control algorithms were tested under simulated
40 conditions, and an Adaptive-Damping-Adaptive-Step power
35
Output Power (dBm) control algorithm was proposed to enhance the convergence
30

25
time and reduce the variability of the output power. It was
20 proven that this modication of the LMS algorithm can dramati-
15
cally improve the energy efficiency respect to a constant power
10

5
scheme adding very small complexity. Furthermore, the pro-
0 posed PCA introduces a wavelength switching decision stage
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
History Size for multi-color emitters, obtaining an additional improvement
of around 40% in the power efficiency.
Fig. 7. Output power using the wavelength-switching stage
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
power showing in blue lines the period of blue emission This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Gov-
and in red the complementary period. The used channel ernment (MINECO Project ARIES TEC2013-47682-C2-1).
gain distribution for the blue channel is the one used at R EFERENCES
Scenario #2, whilst the red channel distribution was of the
[1] H. Kopka and P. W. Daly, A Guide to LATEX, 3rd ed. Harlow, England:
type GEV (5 105 , 2.5 105 , 0.3). Note that the red channel Addison-Wesley, 1999.
response is slightly better than the blue response (close-range
scenario). The efficiencies of the blue and red emitters are
related 0.3:1. It can be observed that the algorithm starts in
blue but quickly decides to switch to red. The interrogation
period is clearly observed each 10 iterations. Finally, the
resulting output power of the algorithm at red is much lower
that in the case of the blue one.
The energy saving E of the PCA can be calculated as:
N
1 1 X
E =1 lim (i )P (i) (19)
min Pmax N N i=1

Using this equation, the average energy savings of the

ASAD algorithm and the same algorithm with wavelength
switching for the presented scenario are presented in Table
III
Algorithm E
Only Blue 50.47 %
With Switching 89.41 %

TABLE III
E NERGY SAVING

It can be observed that the sole fact of including a PCA

produces an energy saving in the communications interface
of 50.47 %. Furthermore, after introducing a wavelength-
switching stage, the energy saving raises up to almost a 90
% respect to the static case.

V. C ONCLUSIONS
In this work, a new PCA algorithm has been proposed in
order to improve the energy-efficient strategies to reduce the
power consumption of battery-powered nodes. Power control
algorithms dramatically reduce the power consumption. Tra-
ditionally, power control has been used in cellular networks to
maximize the SINR, controlling the output power to generate
the lowest possible interference. However, in UWOC sensor
networks the main objective is to reduce the power consump-
tion as much as possible, due to the elevated replacement costs.