UNDERWATER

WIRELESS
COMMUNICATION

INTRODUCTION
Underwater wireless communication is the
wireless communication in which acoustic
signals (waves) carry digital information
through
an
underwater
channel.
Electromagnetic waves are not used as they
propagate over short distances. Over the past
decades, heavy cables were used to establish
a high speed communication between remote
end and the surface. To overcome such
difficulties,
underwater
wireless
communication has come into existence.

NECESSITY OF UNDERWATER
WIRELESS COMMUNICATION
Wired underwater is not feasible in all
situations as shown below-:
Temporary experiments
Breaking of wires
Significant cost of deployment
Experiment over long distances.
To cope up with above situations, we
require
underwater
wireless
communication.

FACTORS INFLUENCING
ACOUSTIC COMMUNICATION
Path loss: Due to attenuation and
geometric spreading.
Noise:
Man-made noise and ambient
noise(due to hydrodynamics)
Multi-path propagation
High propagation delay
Doppler frequency spread.

HARDWARE PLATFORM
INTERFACES
Sensor Interface:
Must develop common interface with different sensors
(chemical, optical, etc.) and communication elements
(transducer) .
Wide (constantly changing) variety of sensors, sampling
strategies
Communication Interface:
- Amplifiers, Transducers
- Signal modulation
Hardware:
Software Defined Acoustic Modem (SDAM)
Reconfigurable hardware known to provide, flexible,
high performance implementations for DSP applications

ACOUSTIC MODEM
Employ advanced modulation scheme and
channel equalization for improved signal to
noise ratio.
Employ high performance error detection and
correction coding scheme which reduces bit
error rate to less than 10-7
Parts of an acoustic modem:
DSP Board
AFE(Analog Front End) Board
DC/DC Converter

DATA TRANSMISSION IN MODEM

When no data is being transmitted, the
modem stays in sleep mode, it periodically
wakes up to receive possible data being
transmitted by far end modem. This results in
low power consumption. Similarly when the
data is to be transmitted , the modem
receives data from its link in sleep mode and
then switches to transmit mode and transmit
the data.

ADVANCED MODEMS AVAILABLE

UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC SENSOR

NETWORKS (UW-ASN)
Group of sensors and vehicles deployed
underwater and networked via acoustic
links, performing collaborative tasks.
Equipment

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs)

Underwater sensors (UW-ASN)

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs)

It is a robot which travels underwater without requiring input from
an operator.

Applications Of AUV
Until relatively recently, AUVs have been used for a limited
number of tasks dictated by the technology available.
With the development of more advanced processing
capabilities and high yield power supplies, AUVs are now
being used for more and more tasks with roles and
missions constantly evolving.
Commercial
The oil and gas industry uses AUVs to make detailed maps
of the seafloor before they start building sub sea
infrastructure; pipelines and sub sea completions can be
installed in the most cost effective manner with minimum
disruption to the environment. The AUV allows survey
companies to conduct precise surveys of areas where
traditional bathymetric surveys would be less effective or
too costly. Also, post-lay pipe surveys are now possible.

APPLICATIONS

Seismic monitoring.
Pollution monitoring
Ocean currents monitoring
Equipment monitoring and control
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV)
Remotely operated vehicle(ROV)
Acoustic navigation technology for multiple AUVs.
Solar Powered AUVs

LIMITATIONS

Battery power is limited and usually batteries

can not be recharged easily.
The available bandwidth is severely limited.
Underwater sensors are prone to failures
because of fouling, corrosion, etc.
Highly affected by environmental and natural
factors such as heterogeneities of the water
column, variations of sound velocity versus
depth, temperature and salinity, multiple and
random
sea
reflections
and
significant
scattering by fish, bubble clouds and plankton.

CONCLUSION
Despite much development in this area of the
underwater wireless communication, there is still
an immense scope so more research as major
part of the ocean bottom yet remains
unexploded. The main objective is to overcome
the present limitations and implement advanced
technology for oceanographic research and cope
up with the environmental effects on the noise
performance of acoustic systems to compete
with the future challenges like effective
transmission of audio and video signals etc.

References
www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/news
letters/oes/html/spring06/underwater.h
tml
www.link-quest.com/html/oceans2000.pdf/
www.gleonrcn.org/pgmdownload_media.php?name=Aquanode.pps
www.cs.virginia.edu/sigbed/archives/akyildiz
.pdf

THANK YOU