2018 3rd International Conference for Convergence in Technology (I2CT)

The Gateway Hotel, XION Complex, Wakad Road, Pune, India. Apr 06-08, 2018

UNDERWATER WIRELESS COMMUNICATION

AND SYSTEMS
Akshay Bidwai, Abhiyash Hodge, Hrishikesh Humnabakar
Electronics and telecommunication
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology
Pune, India
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract---Underwater wireless communication has become very

important parameter nowadays. our earth is almost fully Sensors interfacing, communication interfacing plays a very
equipped by water, about seventy-one percent of earth’s surface important role in this type of platform and which is more
is water. As the world has raised their technology level up to the beneficial for further researches and discovery. Sensor
top, underwater wireless communication has become fastest interfacing means common interfacing with different sensors
growing fields. our technology will grow up rapidly if we are able which are chemical or optical sensors and many such sensors
to give more information of underwater world to the real-time can be used. And communication sensors which include the
world, this is only possible by wireless communications and
amplifier, transducers, signal modulation.
systems. Underwater communication is more complex and harsh
wireless communication, as it is affected by many things such as Underwater wireless communication is so important
marine condition, pollution, noise, limited bandwidth and many nowadays. underwater wired communication is not feasible in
more. so, it’s very important to control such parameters which
would not affect again.The need for underwater wireless
all such situations such as temporary experiments, sometimes
communications exists in various applications such as human wire breaks easily, the cost is more, experiment over long
communication underwater, disaster detections, monitoring the distances. so, to solve these problems underwater wireless
pollution in environmental systems, video and image communication is much necessary. In past decades heavy
transmission to the real-time world, the collection of data from cables are used for communications between surface and
water stations and many such discoveries can be obtained. and midpart of the sea but it is more difficult to perform such task
thus, underwater wireless communication has played the most because wires and cables break sometimes which is the
important role in this competitive world. biggest disadvantage of wired underwater communication and
thus underwater wireless communication is preferred.
Keywords: Underwater wireless communication, bandwidth,
disaster detections, Real-time world, image transmission.
II. UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC SENSORS AND NETWORKS
I. INTRODUCTION
In Underwater wireless communication systems, many signals It’s very important to interact with underwater signals, there
are used such as optic waves, electromagnetic waves and are several ways of employing such communication but the
acoustic waves. among which acoustic signals are the only most efficient and common is hydrophones.
signal which is beneficial for underwater wireless
Basically, hydrophones are one of the types of acoustic
communication whereas electromagnetic signals are not
modem which is used listen or record the underwater sound.
preferred because they propagate over a short distance and due
Most hydrophones are based on a piezoelectric transducer that
to large attenuation and absorption electromagnetic waves do
will generate electricity when it comes in contact with
not travel well in sea water. acoustic waves are longitudinal
underwater sound ways or pressure change. And such
waves, like waves which havethe same direction of vibration
piezoelectric transducers can be converted into pressure wave
as the direction of propagation. Acoustic signals waves travel
to electric signals. Hydrophone works more precisely
with the speed of sound which depends on the medium they
underwater than in the atmosphere. As Water is so Denser
are passing through. Generally, we use an acoustic signal for
fluid than air. Hydrophone is an acoustic modem which is
transmitting and receiving data under water. talking about
used to transmit the data underwater just like a telephone
optic waves or signal which can only pass through limited
transmit the data over phone lines. Acoustic modems carry
rang in the very clean water environment, therefore it’s not a
digital signals which convert into electrical signals so, these
proper thing that should be used for underwater wireless
signals are received by hydrophones or any acoustic modem
communication.
and then it is converted back to digital signals.

978-1-5386-4273-3/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 1

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 In order to have data of underwater world, UNDERWATER SENSOR AND NETWORKS
many such hydroacoustic stations can be obtained over the
world. Currently, there is 11 such station which monitors the
oceans on earth as sound waves travel very efficiently
underwater. If sound waves are generated underwater, these
waves travel under water and when they come in contact with Alert message to social services
the hydroacoustic station which is implemented by and transmit the data to
hydrophones. Hydrophones are much sensitive underwater satellites…
when sudden changes occur underwater this hydrophone
configure quickly and change the water pressure into electrical
signals. the very important thing is that hydrophones are
generated in triplets which helps them from where these sound
or pressure wave comes from. now this signal is transmitted in Alerting
the station and then it passes the data to satellites and thus the
information can be access underwater.
Interfacing with hydrophones in underwater can be made even Monitoring
better ifa conical shaped sound reflector is attached around
that modem. this type of hydrophones produced low-cost omni
directional type, but it should be stationary. Instead of using a
conical shaped sound reflector we can use spherical body
around it, the main advantage is that we can move this Data processing
hydrophone around within the water. subsystems

Underwater communication generally gets affected due to

noise underwater, high attenuation so, in order to overcome Data dispersal Data dispersal
this problem, we can use multiple hydrophones so that it will subsystems subsystem
add the signal through these multiple hydrophones and we will
get the desired output at the end. The arrangements of the
array must be two or three dimensions which will increase the signal subsystems signal subsystems
accuracy of signal transmission.

satellite Surface link

WATER
water level

onshore The above flowchart shows that how information is collected

sink from water and sent to the real-time world.
Now, there some fundamental stages in underwater wireless
communication to which we should work seriously such as
attenuation. Due to high attenuation, it becomes very difficult
surface station to communicate underwater. The fundamental losses that
occur over the transmission. The data transmitted underwater
get lost due to Surface-bottom reflections and refraction that
Cabled sea floor sensor occur as sound speed changes with depth. There are some
random changes in large-scale received power as well. So, as
we have seen before that in order to overcome this problem,
Acoustically connected sensor multiple hydrophones are used for data transmission and
receiver.
Autonomous underwater vehicle

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 III. UNDERWATER WIRELESS HUMAN-ROBOT 1)Diver to robot communication:
INTERACTION divers communicate with the robot by hand sign signals, they
The use of robotics in the underwater world has become very arerequired to know hand signals that translate to “I m ok”,
difficult task nowadays with such autonomous systemWireless “something is wrong”,“follow me” and many such important
teleoperation underwater is the nearly impossible task due to phrases that robot need to know while communicating with the
the time delay between an operator and receiving data. human. These are explicit commands of diver which is used to
Underwater wireless communication through radio waves is communicate with the robot. There is one important factor
not possible due to high attenuation in the water medium as which we have to take care while communicating with the
we have discussed before. Whereas the primary method of robot.
underwater wireless communication involves an acoustic factor – while performing hand sign signals robot and diver
communication. Underwater robots which are typically should be in visual range of each other which reduces
referred to as “Remotely underwater vehicles” (ROV) which attenuation as well and it also allows the robot to use an
have proven extremely useful for missions such as research in optical camera to communicate with diver. There is another
the water, search and rescue. Secondly,there is untethered method to communicate with the robot that is the use of
underwater robot which often referred to as an “Autonomous underwater slates to convey information in written form. thus,
underwater vehicles” (AUV). These types of robots can only the use of underwater slates is preferred more than hand
communicate very few bytes per second over the acoustic signals because it does not need to define before the dive.
communication link. These types of the robot are used for When diver communicates using underwater slate, that written
long-range scientific sampling and missions. message appears on the underwater robot assistant’s optical
camera. As we know that frequency range of human voice
Now let’s address the issue of diver interacting the with the outside water is between 20 to 20kHZ the but the underwater
underwater robot. It’s very important to study that how human human hearing range is about 200KHZ which more than
diver interacts and communicate with each other. A Diver uses expected thus in order to overcome this problem we can
the explicit communication such as hand sign signals to convert this voice signal to the message or written form. If
convey information. The can also communicate by text both diver and robot are tethered together by surface thus
messages such that robot decodes that text messages. voice communication can be obtained from a diver. if diver
[2]. wants light around him he can be obtained light from robot
through message signal.The Robot carries a modem, camera,
lightening torch, robotic arm which is very useful to search
new things underwater.

These are some hand sign signals which helps the diver to
communicate with the underwater robot.

“I AM OK” “LET’S SURFACE”

The above diagram shows that how diver-robot

communication is obtained. This is often referred to as a
CADDY concept. CADDY stands for a cognitive autonomous
diving buddy" which establish cognitive behavior between
human and robot.
Now lets study about diver to robot and robot to diver “SOMETHING IS WRONG” “LOW ON AIR”
communication in underwater.

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2) Robot-to- diver communication: reuse some acoustic bandwidths and also avoid many
challenges as compared to long-range communication. Ad-hoc
Robot to diver communication is a bit similar to the human to wireless sensors are one of the best sensors which is used to
human interaction. The remotely operating vehicles are monitor pollution easily.
equipped with lightning signals which are very important for
the robot to provide illumination in dark. These lightning
signals have the many advantages to a robot in order to B. UNDERWATER EXPLORATIONS
communicate with the human. Such as, these lightning signals
could provide feedback to diver during communication, for Internet of underwater things can be applied to find lost
example, the variations or the number of lighting signals could treasuries, which would be the benefit for the infrastructure of
denote “YES” or “NO”, “READY” or “NOT READY”. these underwater sensors and networks. IOUT is also applied to
are some indication which used for robot-human interaction. tracking of fishes, and there is some underwater natural
The 2nd advantage is the lighting signals could illuminate the resource discovery, such a minerals, metals, and corals etc. the
human in dark. The 3rd advantageis the lighting signals helps discovery of Titanic in 1985 benefited for the use of
the diver to check air supply. The 4th advantage is that, if robot underwater automatic vehicles (by the woods hole
moved away in the with human, then the human could find oceanographic institution)
that robot with help of illusion in dark.
Similarly, the diver can also indicate robot through hand sign
signals, either “Acknowledge” or “Not acknowledge”. In case C. DISASTER PREVENTIONS
if robot wants to show diver a direction of the path then the
robot could use the light signals so that if robot wants to turn As we know about disaster prevention, there are many sensors
right then by light direction diver understands it very well. which are used to detect the earthquake, tsunami, and many
such disasters. The Acoustic modem is one of them, as we
have discussed before. but including this modem, there are
many such sensors which are used to prevent disasters. To
IV. INTERNET OF UNDERWATER THINGS(IOUT) provide applications for preventions of such disasters, internet
of underwater things is used to offer early warnings services.
Providing information from water to the real-time world and For tsunami detections, we need to propose an efficient
Vice versa is a major part of the internet of underwater things. architecture for such application. Seismic pressure sensors are
As we have discussed beforeunderwater acoustic networks and one of the well-known sensors which are used to detect
systems, which also comes under internet of underwater tsunamis underwater. This seismic pressure sensor collects the
things. data by using the directed diffusion routing protocol.
In the last decade, manytypes research took place under the
internet of underwater things.so, there are some application
Which are classified as follows: D. MILITARY

1) ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING The military often reflects the ability of a country to defend
2) UNDERWATER EXPLORATION itself against from any underwater or any attacks. So, internet
3) DISASTER PREVENTION of underwater wireless communication is required for military
4) MILITARY purposes. Submarine detections, underwater mine detections,
and underwater surveillance systems are major parameters for
defence purpose. Submarine detection is the most important
A. ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING part here, investigation the design of sensors and proposesa
scheme to optimize the monitoring coverage. Water depth,
Pollution mainly caused due impure water or bad quality water attenuation, bandwidth, transmission range and many such
so, it’s very important to improve the quality of water. parameters which uses practice swarm optimization to
according to the technical designed survey, there are some determine positions of a sensor node.
sensor nodes which is used to monitor the Ph of water. pH
water is the main parameter which is used to indicate the
quality of water. so, using sensor nodes we can indicate the Ph V.EVALUATION OF SUCCESSIVE DELIVERY RATIOIN
value. UNDERWATER WIRELESS COMMUNICATION.
Thus, we can wirelessly transmit data to the base station by
using ZigBee communications. ZigBee modems can transmit Transmission of data from the sensor node to control stations
over a long distance easily. There are some wireless sensor or from sink to sensor node successively is the most part of
networks which are used to monitor the ocean pollution, underwater wireless communications. there are some results of
instead of using long-range communication technique, short- successful delivery ratio with different transmitted power.
range communication technique better to use because it can

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 transmission power 1 watt transmission power 10 watt
120
100 120
delivery ratio(%)

80 100

delivery ratio (%)

60 80
Series1 60
40
20 40 Series1
20
0
0
transmission distance (m) 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800

transmission distance (m)

transmission power 2 watt VI. UNDERWATER WIRELESS IMAGE AND VIDEO

TRANSMISSION
It is the most important parameter of underwater wireless
105 communication, as the need for video and image transmission
exists in many applications such as environment monitoring,
delivery ratio (%)

100
aquaculture, ecological monitoring any many more. early
95 effortswere made by Japanese scientists, who successfully
90 transmitted video and image underwater and also Successfully
Series1
received videos and images from the water. Japanese scientists
85 showed a digital video in which crab was crawling a depth of
80
1000meter in an ocean. This video was, in fact, independent
images, which means a single image obtained after every 10
100 200 300 400 500 seconds. But this was the great effort made by those scientists.
transmission distance (m) so, video compression plays the very important role in this
type of issue, because it enables transmission of full-resolution
video at the lower bit rate. Due to compression of video signal
processing and acoustic communications, which will enable
the transmission of the digital signal at the higher bit rate. So,
in short, the digital signal transmission goes to higher bit rate
while full resolution video goes to the lower bit rate. So, it is a
very challenging task to record video underwater with lower
transmission power 40 watt bit rate and to obtained in the real-time world successfully.
Images and videos underwater are contrasted
120 which enables them to compressed to the lower bit rate and
thus videos are compressed below 64kbps and signals of these
100
delivery ratio (%)

videos are to be transmitted successfully through acoustic

80 channels.there are many methods to work on the video
60 compression such a standard MPEG-4 technique. MPEG
stands for “moving picture experts group”. so, basically, it is a
40 technique used for compression of audio or visual data.
Series1
20 MPEG-4 has many features such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2
and much more which can be made to work on audio and
0
visual signals. MPEG-4 was aimed at lower-bitrate video
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000

communication and is also efficient to bit-rates ranging from

kilobits per seconds to tens of megabits per second. It has
transmission distance (m) many advantages such as improved coding efficiency with
respect to other devices, ability to encode mixed data such as
video, image, audio etc. and ability to interact with the audio-
visual scene generated at the receiver.

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 Including MPEG-4 method, a custom-designed wavelet- REFERENCES
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The another most important parameter is image and video
transmission. underwater exploration or investigation is being
done from last many decades and many types of research are
yet to be found, for that video and image transmission to the
real-time world is the most important thing. And thus, we
could observe the world of underwater from the real-time
world through cameras. if we apply cameras on an
autonomous underwater vehicle then we could control that
vehicle even from control stations. Human-robot interactions
are also done through cameras attached to robots. for
example,we can communicate with the robot through hand
gesture so that image could be obtained on screen and robot
could easily understand it. Internet of underwater things plays
the major role because it leads to environmental monitoring,
underwater explorations, disaster prevention, military purpose
and many more.

VIII. CONCLUSIONS
There is much scope in the underwater communication system
and many discoveries and explorations are still unexplored.
So, the main objective is to solve the current problems or
limitations and work on new technologies and researchers and
improve environmental effects and noise which causes many
things related to underwater wireless communications such as
effective transmission of image, videos and audio signals to
the real-time world.

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