Initialization method for underwater acoustic networks with one anchor

The initialization method is an important procedure for network protocol. It has two parts, self-localization and time synchronization. For underwater acoustic networks, a self-localization algorithm is proposed with selected reference nodes only using one anchor. This algorithm reduces the effection of topology and range error. It has a high accuracy without using a lot of anchors. On the basis of localization, an rapidly initialization method is presented. This method solves the time synchronization and localization problems at the same time which can decrease the time delay of the initialization process and the communication traffic. Simulation results show that the proposed method has high positioning accuracy, short initialization time delay and low communication traffic which has a good performance in underwater acoustic networks.