Adaptive guard band and power control for resource allocation in mobile and fixed mission-critical IoUT networks

The Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) is transforming underwater communication by enabling essential mission-critical applications such as precise navigation, emergency response coordination, diver safety, robust security and surveillance systems, and real-time environmental monitoring. However, Underwater Acoustic Communication (UAC), which serves as the primary communication medium for IoUT, experiences substantial challenges, including limited bandwidth availability, severe signal attenuation and Doppler-induced frequency shifts, especially pronounced in mobile underwater environments. These challenges degrade throughput and increase latency, making it difficult to meet the strict delay and reliability demands of mission-critical IoUT applications. Without adaptive solutions, real-time underwater communication remains unreliable and inefficient. This paper introduces an Adaptive Guard band and Power control resource allocation scheme for mission critical applications (AGP-MCA), specifically designed to improve underwater communication. The AGP-MCA framework optimizes the acoustic spectrum based on the criticality of IoUT applications. AGP-MCA dynamically adjusts guard bands to effectively mitigate Doppler caused by mobile nodes and strategically manages transmission power to reduce power consumption significantly, and handles non-critical data through buffering. We formulate a comprehensive mathematical optimization model and employ a Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA)-based meta heuristic approach to achieve near-optimal solutions while ensuring minimal computational complexity. Extensive simulations demonstrate that AGP-MCA enhances throughput, reduces both end-to-end delay and power consumption, and consistently outperforms existing protocols and configurations without adaptive guard bands. Further, it offers a robust and power-efficient solution for real-time mission-critical IoUT applications.