Energy-efficient routing protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks using a hybrid metaheuristic algorithm

Energy-efficient routing protocols for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) have become critical in recent years for the intelligent and reliable collection of data from the seas and oceans. UWSNs are a group of deep-water sensors that are used for marine exploration and ocean surveillance. This network is used to route data collected by sensors deployed at different water depths to surface water sensors (sinks). Transmitting the collected data from the ocean's depths to the surface is difficult due to the limited available bandwidth, inconvenient location, high mobility of the sensors, and, most importantly, limited energy. The purpose of this paper is to present a routing protocol that improves the reliability of data transmission from a source sensor to a destination sensor. A hybrid metaheuristic algorithm called GSLS is proposed to use in this protocol, which combines a Global Search Algorithm (GSA) and a Local Search Algorithm (LSA). The proposed GSA is an algorithm inspired by several of the Genetic Algorithm's (GAs) solution updating properties. The proposed LSA algorithm is an extension of the scattered search algorithm. The proposed GSA and LSA are combined in parallel to search the problem's space simultaneously to find an optimal path in an acceptable time. as a result, more problem area is examined, and the algorithm's run time to find the best route is reduced. Our simulation results emphasize the high quality of the path, the algorithm's low energy consumption, and the algorithm's high speed in comparison to the state-of-the-art.