Under water wireless communication

Introduction
Acoustic communications is defined as communication methods from one point to
another by using acoustic signals. Acoustic signal is the only physical feasible tool that works
in underwater environment. Compared with it electromagnetic wave can only travel in water
with short distance due to the high attenuation and absorption effect in underwater
environment. It is found that the absorption of electromagnetic energy in sea water is about
45 f dB per kilo meter, where f is frequency in Hertz. In contrast, the absorption of acoustic
signal over most frequencies of interest is about three orders of magnitude lower. There are
some investigations about utilizing optical signal for underwater applications. However, they
find out that optical signal can only pass through limited range in very clean water
environment (deep water, for example). Thus, it is not a proper tool for long-distance
transmission underwater, or in a not-so clean water, e.g., shallow water, environment.

DEPT OF ECE 1 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Underwater Acoustic Networks, including but not limited to, Underwater Acoustic Sensor
Networks (UASNs)and Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Networks (AUVNs), are defined as
networks composed of more than two nodes, using acoustic signals to communicate, for the
purpose of underwater applications. UASNs and AUVNs are two important kinds of UANs.
The former is composed of many sensor nodes, mostly for a monitoring purpose. The nodes
are usually without or with limited capacity to move. The latter is composed of autonomous
or unmanned vehicles with high mobility, deployed for applications that need mobility, e.g.,
exploration. An UAN can be an UASN, or an AUVN, or a combination of both.

Fundamentals of Waves
Understanding the first principles of each physical wave used in UWSN wireless
communication is critically important. In this section we layout the fundamental physical
properties and critical issues for each of the acoustic and optical wave propagations in

DEPT OF ECE 2 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

underwater environments. We discuss each physical carriers advantages and disadvantages

towards efficient underwater wireless communication.

Acoustic Waves
Among the types of waves, acoustic waves are used as the primary carrier for
underwater wireless communication systems due to the relatively low absorption in
underwater environments. We start the discussion with the physical fundamentals and the
implications of using acoustic waves as the wireless communication carrier in underwater
environments.

Physical Properties:
An acoustic wave has a number of propagation characteristics that are unique from
other waves, two of which are highlighted below:

Propagation velocity: The extremely slow propagation speed of sound through water is an
important factor that differentiates it from electromagnetic propagation. The speed of sound
in water depends on the water properties of temperature, salinity and pressure (directly
related to the depth). A typical speed of sound in water near the ocean surface is about 1520
m/s, which is more than 4 times faster than the speed of sound in air, but five orders of
magnitude smaller than the speed of light. The speed of sound in water increases with
increasing water temperature, increasing salinity and increasing depth. Most of the changes in
sound speed in the surface ocean are due to the changes in temperature. This is because the
effect of salinity on sound speed is small and salinity changes in the open ocean are small.
Near shore and in estuaries, where the salinity varies greatly, salinity can have a more
significant effect on the speed of sound in water. As depth increases, the pressure of water has
the largest effect on the speed of sound .Under most conditions the speed of sound in water is
simple to understand. Sound will travel faster in warmer water and slower in colder water.
Approximately, the sound speed increases 4.0 m/s for water temperature .As the depth of
water (therefore also the pressure) increases 1 km, the sound speed increases roughly 17 m/s.
It is noteworthy to point out that the above assessments are only for rough quantitative or
qualitative discussions, and the variations in sound speed for a given property are not linear in
general. Absorption: During propagation, wave energy may be converted to other forms and
absorbed by the medium. The absorptive energy loss is directly controlled by the material
imperfection for the type of physical wave propagating through it. For acoustic waves, this
material imperfection is the inelasticity, which converts the wave energy into heat.

DEPT OF ECE 3 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Optical Communication
The present technology of acoustic underwater communication is a legacy technology
that provides low-data-rate transmissions for medium-range communication. Data rates of
acoustic communication are restricted to around tens of thousands of kilobits per second for
ranges of a kilo meter, and less than a thousand kilobits per second for ranges up to 100 km,
due to severe, frequency-dependent attenuation and surface induced pulse spread. In addition,
the speed of acoustic waves in the ocean is approximately 1500 m/s, so that long-range
communication involves high latency, which poses a problem for real-time response,
synchronization, and multiple-access protocols. In addition, acoustic waves could distress
marine mammals such as dolphins and whales. As a result, acoustic technology cannot satisfy
emerging applications that require around the clock, high-data-rate communication networks
in real time. Examples of such applications are networks of sensors for the investigation of
climate change; monitoring biological, biogeochemical, evolutionary, and ecological
processes in sea, ocean, and lake environments; and unmanned underwater vehicles used to
control and maintain oil production facilities and harbors.

An alternative means of underwater communication is based on optics, wherein high

data rates are possible. However, the distance between the transmitter and the receiver must
be short, due to the extremely challenging underwater environment, which is characterized by
high multi scattering and absorption. Multi scattering causes the optical pulse to widen in the
spatial, temporal, angular, and polarization domains. Optical signal gets scattered badly
underwater, and the absorption is also high. Beside of these, optical wave transmission
requires high precision in pointing the narrow laser beams. In very clean water, e.g., deep sea,
blue-green wavelengths may be used for short-range connection. The advantage of optical
signal lies in its high data rate up to 100 m. Up to today, the only practical solution for
underwater communication with acceptable range is utilizing acoustic signal, which travels
underwater with longer distance, less attenuation, and higher reliability. However, available
bandwidth is extremely limited for acoustic signal. For a very long distance at the order of
1000 km, the available bandwidth falls below a kHz; while only at very short ranges below
about 100 m, more than a hundred kHz of bandwidth may be available. Lack of available
bandwidth is the biggest issue for underwater acoustic communication /network. High bit
error rate is common in underwater channels, due to the multi path interference and time-
varying nature of underwater acoustic channels.

DEPT OF ECE 4 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Engineering counter measures

In this section, we describe the engineering countermeasures that have been
developed to address the physical challenges for each wave used as the communication
carrier in underwater sensor networks. These are physical layer techniques to achieve point-to
point communication among sensor nodes.

Acoustic Communication
Multicarrier modulation: The idea of multicarrier modulation is to divide the available
bandwidth into a large number of overlapping sub bands, so that the waveform duration for
the symbol at each sub band is long compared to the multipath spread of the channel
Consequently, inter-symbol interference may be neglected in each sub band, greatly
simplifying the receiver complexity of channel equalization. Precisely due to this advantage,
multicarrier modulation in the form of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)
has prevailed in recent broadband wireless radio applications. Multi-input multi-output
techniques: A wireless system that employs multiple transmitters and multiple receivers is
referred to as a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system Hence, MIMO modulation is
a promising technology to offer yet another fundamental advance on high data rate
underwater acoustic communication. MIMO has been applied in both single carrier
transmission and multicarrier transmission.

Optical Communication
As pointed out water quality plays a key role in deciding whether optical waves can
be used for underwater communication. As a result, the applicability of optical
communication heavily depends on environments. Using the same analogy for acoustic and
electromagnetic waves, we say that optical communication works in the environment-limited
region. So far, there are not many commercial activities on underwater optical
communication, and no commercial optical modems are available specifically for underwater.
Recent interests in underwater sensor networks and sea floor observatories have greatly
stimulated the interest in short-range high-rate optical communication in water.

Applications: ocean observation

Environmental monitoring
climate recording
pollution control

DEPT OF ECE 5 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

prediction of natural disasters

oil/gas fields
harbor protection
Underwater exploration
discovery of natural resources
marine phenomena
deep-sea archaeology
Scientific data collection
oceanography
geo-sciences (physics/chemistry)
marine biology
Search and survey, military and non military
detection of objects
ocean bottom imaging and
Mapping

DEPT OF ECE 6 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Acoustic Modem
Acoustic modems offer the possibility of wireless communication under water. For
those who have dealt with cables in unfavorable ocean environments, this is an elegant
solution for communication. Typical applications for acoustic modems are real time systems
or previously deployed systems where data needs to be periodically downloaded. Despite the
allure of wireless communication, acoustic modems are not without their limitations and
challenges. To help you decide whether an acoustic modem is suitable for your particular
communication needs, we explain these limitations and how they affect your communication
here.

Functional Description
Underwater acoustic communication is relatively slow when compared to radio
communication. This has to do largely with the speed of sound in water which is roughly
1500 meters/second. The result is a relatively low baud rate (typically 9600 baud). Not only
is the medium slow but there are complications with the transmission due to signal
absorption, geometric spreading losses, boundary effects, and multipath to name a few.
Manufacturers have several techniques they employ to handle these challenges. The
techniques come in the form of signal processing, data packaging, and coding schemes. These
techniques, which are not the same for all manufacturers, help ensure reliable communication
and possibly identify bit loss and/or repair these lost portions of data at the receiver end.

There are several methods of transmitting data acoustically (i.e. modulation), but the
most common method is the use of spread spectrum. Briefly, this is a method of sending data
at several different frequencies (Multi-Frequency Shifted Key, MFSK) in order to increase
data throughput. Another modulation scheme is the Phase Shifted Key, or PSK; this
modulation scheme permits higher baud rates but is more susceptible to error sources.The
data are packed to ensure that a few errors will not corrupt the entire data message. This
means that large amounts of data are sent as a series of these data packages. A typical data
package is approximately 4 kb. A package contains the data plus additional bytes of data for
identifying the package boundaries, modem identity, checksum, and error correction codes.

Some modems allow for a configuration where a retransmission request is sent from
the receiver if errors are detected in a data package. The implication of lost data is that it must
be retransmitted. This affects the effective baud rate if a modem is operating at a high

DEPT OF ECE 7 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

acoustic baud rate.Apart from the modulation schemes and packaging techniques there are
also techniques to minimize the effects of multipath. Multipath is the reception of the same
signal several times, yet slightly delayed from one another. Since the signal is the same
frequency and arrives at more or less the same time, it is challenging to separate the original
signal from time delayed versions overlapping each other.

As the name suggests, multipath is the source of these different signals that are
reflections of the original signal from boundaries that lie between the transmitter and receiver.
Multipath is most prominent over long ranges and shallow water, whereby the original signal
can bounce between the surface and bottom before arriving at the receiver. There are a few
tricks in use to reduce the effects of multipath. These are convolutional coding, multipath
guard period, and data redundancy.

Convolutional coding is data in a following frame that is capable of correcting up to

one bit errors in the data frame previously sent.

Multipath guard is a time delay inserted between data frames. Increasing the delay
between frames reduces the interference from multipath.

Data redundancy is simply the process by which data is retransmitted in the same data
frame.

Demerits of Acoustic Modem

Range and Depth Communication over short distances (approximately 200 meters) is
quite dependable. This is particularly true for vertical communication in deep waters with few
boundaries. Horizontal communication in shallow waters is increasingly more challenging
as the depth/range aspect ratio becomes smaller. An example of a
challenging scenario is 5 meter depth over a range of 3000 meters.

Clear Line of Sight If you do not have a clear line of sight between the modems, it is
very unlikely that there will be communication between them. It is also unlikely that an
acoustically rigid boundary can be used to reflect energy in order to achieve an indirect
transmission path.

DEPT OF ECE 8 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Parts of an acoustic modem:

DSP Board
AFE(Analog Front End) Board

DEPT OF ECE 9 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (Uw-Asn)

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.

UW-ASN COMMUNICATION ARCHITECTURE

2-D ARCHITECTURE

DEPT OF ECE 10 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

DEPT OF ECE 11 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Underwater networks
Integrated networks of instruments, sensors, robots and vehicles will operate together
in a variety of underwater environments

Acoustic networks, navigation and sensing for multiple autonomous underwater robotic
vehicles.

DEPT OF ECE 12 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Attacks And Counter Measures

Worm
hole
attack
Sinkho
Jammi s
le
ng Attack
s

ATTACKS Hello
Sybil
attack Flood
attack

Ackno
Selectiv wledg
e ment
Forwar Spoof
ding ng

DEPT OF ECE 13 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Jamming

Method of Attack

The transmission of data packets continuously so that the wireless channel get
completely blocked.

Countermeasures

Spread spectrum techniques.

Sensors can switch to sleep mode

Wormhole Attack

Method of attack

False neighborhood relationship are created.

Countermeasures

Estimating the direction of arrival.

DEPT OF ECE 14 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Hello Flood Attack

Wireless sensor network have emerged as an important application of the ad-hoc

networks paradigm, such as for monitoring physical environment. These sensor networks
have limitations of system resources like battery power, communication range and processing
capability. Low processing power and wireless connectivity make such networks vulnerable
to various types of network attacks. One of them is hello flood attack, in which an adversary,
which is not a legal node in the network, can flood hello request to any legitimate node and
break the security of WSN. The current solutions for these types of attacks are mainly
cryptographic, which suffer from heavy computational complexity. Hence they are less
suitable for wireless sensor networks. A method based on signal strength has been proposed
to detect and prevent hello flood attack. Nodes have been classified as friend and stranger
based on the signal strength. Short client puzzles that require less computational power and
battery power have been used to check the validity of suspicious nodes.

Underwater Sensor Nodes

DEPT OF ECE 15 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Multi-carrier modulation / orthogonal frequency division multiplexing

Available bandwidth divided into narrow sub-bands: channel appears ideal (flat) in each
sub-band
OFDM: efficient implementation via FFT +Low-complexity equalization (frequency-
domain) -High sensitivity to frequency Offset
High-rate acoustic system is inherently wideband (UWB): Doppler distortion is not
uniform across sub-bands

Schematic of an integrated subsea wireless system comprising acoustic, optical, and

magnetic induction systems.

DEPT OF ECE 16 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs)

An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a robot which travels underwater

without requiring input from an operator. AUVs constitute part of a larger group of undersea
systems known as unmanned underwater vehicles, a classification that includes non-
autonomous remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) controlled and powered from
the surface by an operator/pilot via an umbilical or using remote control. In military
applications AUVs are more often referred to simply as unmanned undersea vehicles
(UUVs).

The first AUV was developed at the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of
Washington as early as 1957 by Stan Murphy, Bob Francois and later on, Terry Ewart. The
"Special Purpose Underwater Research Vehicle", or SPURV, was used to study diffusion,
acoustic transmission, and submarine wakes.

Other early AUVs were developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the
1970s. One of these is on display in the Hart Nautical Gallery in MIT. At the same time,
AUVs were also developed in the Soviet Union (although this was not commonly known
until much later).

DEPT OF ECE 17 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

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.

DEPT OF ECE 18 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Future autonomous underwater systems: network topologies

Centralized

DEPT OF ECE 19 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Decentralized

Depending on the application there two types of Acoustic network .

Centralized network, nodes communicate through a base station that covers one cell.

DEPT OF ECE 20 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

In a decentralized network, nodes communicate via peer-to-peer.

To accommodate multiple users within a selected network topology, the

communication channel must be shared.

Methods for channel sharing are based on scheduling or on contention .

Channel sharing (access regulation)

Deterministic/scheduling
Multiple access: frequency, time code division (FDMA, TDMA, CDMA); also space
division.
Continuous traffic, fixed number of users
Complex, low overhead
Scalability? Spatial reuse for efficient resource allocation (power, bandwidth).
Random/contention
Aloha, Carrier Sensing Multiple Access (CSMA), Multiple access with Collision
Avoidance MACA)
Bursty traffic, variable number of Users
Simple, high overhead (RTS/CTS)
Scalable.

Limitations
Battery power is limited and usually batteries can not be recharged easily.

DEPT OF ECE 21 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

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.

Open problems and future research

Fundamental questions:
Statistical channel modelling
Network capacity
Research areas:
Data compression
Signal processing for communications:
adaptive modulation / coding
channel estimation / prediction
multiple in/out channels (tx/rx arrays)
multi-user communications
communications in hostile environment
Communication networks:
network layout / resource allocation and reuse
network protocols: all layers
network architecture / cross layer optimization

Experimental networks:
System specification: typical vs. application-specific (traffic patterns, performance
requirements) optimization criteria (delay, throughput, reliability, energy efficiency)
Concept demonstration: simulation in-water prototypes

System integration:
Cabled observatories Integration of wireless communications: cabled backbone +
mobile nodes = extended reach Wireless extension: acoustical and optical

DEPT OF ECE 22 AKITS

 Under water wireless communication

Conclusion
The results presented indicate that networks based on under water optical wireless
links are feasible at high data rates for medium distances, up to a hundred meters. Such
networks could serve subsea wireless mobile users. In addition ,by placing multiple relay
nodes between the chief network nodes, messages could traverse very long distances despite
severe medium-induced limitations on the transmission ranges of individual links. Additional
improvements to the availability of the network could be achieved by a hybrid
communication system that would include an optical transceiver and an acoustical
transceiver.
A hybrid communication system can provide high-data rate transmission by using the
optical transceiver. When the water turbidity is high or the distance between the terminals is
large, the system can switch to a low data rate using the acoustic transceiver, thereby
increasing the average data rate and availability. However, the complexity and cost of the
system are increased. In this kind of system, smart buffering and prioritization could help to
mitigate short-term data rate reduction. Many aspects of the proposed system remain to be
investigated .Extensive studies should be made of the nature of multiple scattering in
different oceanic channels.

DEPT OF ECE 23 AKITS

 ABSTRACT

While wireless communication technology today has become part of our daily life, the
idea of wireless undersea communications may still seem far-fetched. However, research has
been active for over a decade on designing the methods for wireless information transmission
underwater.

Human knowledge and understanding of the worlds oceans, which constitute the
major part of our planet, rests on our ability to collect information from remote undersea
locations. The major discoveries of the past decades, such as the remains of Titanic, or the
hydro-thermal vents at bottom of deep ocean, were made using cabled submersibles.
Although such systems remain indispensable if high-speed communication link is to exists
between the remote end and the surface, it is natural to wonder what one could accomplish
without the burden (and cost) of heavy cables.

Hence the motivation, and our interest in wireless underwater communications.

Together with sensor technology and vehicular technology, wireless communications will
enable new applications ranging from environmental monitoring to gathering of
oceanographic data, marine archaeology, and search and rescue missions.

The signals that are used to carry digital information through an underwater channel
are not radio signals, as electro-magnetic waves propagate only over extremely short
distances. Instead, acoustic waves are used, which can propagate over long distances.
However, an underwater acoustic channel presents a communication system designer with
many difficulties. The three distinguishing characteristics of this channel are frequency-
dependent propagation loss, severe multipath, and low speed of sound propagation. None of
these characteristics are nearly as pronounced in land-based radio channels, the fact that
makes underwater wireless communication extremely difficult, and necessitates dedicated
system design.
UNDER WATER WIRELESS
COMMUNICATION

SYSTEM