A SEMINAR REPORT

Submitted in V Semester on

“UNDERWATER WIRELESS COMMUNICATION”

In the partial fulfillment of the requirements for

The award of the degree of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
In
ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

By

Y.HARICHANDANA
(B17EC087)

Under the supervision of

D.VENU (Ass Prof )

Estd.1980

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION

ENGINEERING
KAKATIYA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY &SCIENCE,WARANGAL
(An Autonomous Institute under Kakatiya University, Warangal)
WARANGAL – 506015
2019-2020
 KAKATIYA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY &SCIENCE,WARANGAL
(An Autonomous Institute under the Kakatiya University, Warangal)
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION
ENGINEERING

Estd.1980

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that seminar report entitled “UNDERWATER

WIRELESS COMMUNICATION” embodies the original work done by
Y.HARICHANDANA bearing the Roll Number B17EC087 studying V
Semester in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degree of
the Bachelor of Technology in Electronics & Communication Engineering
from KAKATIYA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE,
WARANGAL during the academic year 2019-2020.

Supervisor (Counselor) Head of the Department

D.VENU Dr.B.Rama Devi
Assistant Professor Professor &Head,
Dept. of ECE Dept. of ECE
KITS, Warangal. KITS, Warangal.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to my seminar
supervisor (Counselor) D.VENU, Assistant Professor,Dept. of ECE, KITS-
Warangal, for his valuable support in making the seminar complete in time.

I sincerely thank the Seminar Coordinator, Dr.K.Sowjanya, Assistant

Professor, Dept. of ECE for timely conduction of seminars and valuable
suggestions during the seminar presentations.

I would cordially thank seminar Convenor, Sri.E.Suresh, Associate

Professor, Dept. of ECE for his continuous cooperation.

I heart fully thank Dr. B. Rama Devi, Professor &Head, Dept. of ECE
for his constant support and encouragement.

I cordially thank Dr.K.Ashoka Reddy, Principal, KITS, Warangal, for

his kind gesture and support.

Finally, I thank all those people who are responsible for making this
report possible through meaningful contribution.

(Y.HARICHANDANA)
B17EC087.
 ABSTRACT

UNDERWATER WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORK

The research of Underwater Acoustic Networks (UANs) is attracting

attention due to their important underwater applications for military and
commercial purposes. Underwater wireless communication networks
(UWCNs) consist of sensors and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)
that interact, coordinate and share information with each other to carry out
sensing and monitoring functions. In last several years, underwater
communication network (UWCN) has found an increasing use in a
widespread range of applications, such as coastal surveillance systems,
environmental research, autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) operation,
oil-rig maintenance, collection of data for water monitoring, linking
submarines to land, to name a few.

Keywords: Autonomous underwater vehicle; sensor nodes; hybrid

communication;
Underwater acoustic network.

Seminar coordinator Counselor

Dr. K. Sowjanya D. Venu
Asst. Professor Asst. Professor
Dept. of ECE Dept. of ECE
 CONTENTS

1. Introduction_______________________________________________________1

2. Communication channel______________________________________________3

3. Wave propagation___________________________________________________4

4. Acoustic modem____________________________________________________7

5. Demerits of Acoustic modem__________________________________________9

*Parts of Acoustic modem 9

6. Underwater Acoustic Sensor networks___________________________________10

*2-D architecture 10

*3-D architecture 11

7. Underwater networks_________________________________________________12

*Underwater sensor nodes 13

8. Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV)________________________________15

9. Network topologies__________________________________________________17

10. Attack & counter measures____________________________________________21

11. Limitations________________________________________________________22

12. Applications_______________________________________________________23

13. Disadvantages_____________________________________________________24

14. Conclusion________________________________________________________25

15. References________________________________________________________26
 INTRODUCTION

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 transmission underwater information.

Human knowledge and understanding of the world’s 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 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.
1
2
 COMMUNICATION CHANNEL

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.

3
 Wave propagation:
Path loss that occurs in an acoustic channel over a distance d is given as
A=d*k* a (f)* d,
Where k is the path loss exponent whose value is usually between 1 and 2, and
a (f) is the absorption factor that depends on the frequency f.

Fig. 1: Shallow water multipath propagation: in addition to the direct path, the
signal propagates via reflections from the surface and bottom.

This dependence severely limits the available bandwidth: for example, at

distances on the order of 100 km, the available bandwidth is only on the order of
1 kHz. At shorter distances, a larger bandwidth is available, but in practice it is
limited by the transducer. Also in contrast to the radio systems, an acoustic
signal is rarely narrowband, i.e., its bandwidth is not negligible with respect to
the center frequency.

Within this limited bandwidth, the signal is subject to multipath propagation,

which is particularly pronounced on horizontal channels. In shallow water,
multipath occurs due to signal reflection from the surface and bottom, as
illustrated in Figure 1.
In deep water, it occurs due to ray bending, i.e. the tendency of acoustic waves
to travel along the axis of lowest sound speed.

4
 Fig. 2: Ensemble of channel impulse responses (magnitudes)

Figure 2 shows an ensemble of channel responses obtained in deep water. The

multipath spread, measured along the delay axis, is on the order of 10ms in this
example. The channel response varies in time, and also changes if the receiver
moves. Regardless of its origin, multipath propagation creates signal echoes,
resulting in inter symbol interference in a digital communication system.

While in a cellular radio system multipath spans a few symbol intervals, in an

underwater acoustic channel it can spans few tens, or even hundreds of symbol
intervals! To avoid the inter symbol interference, a guard time, of length at least
equal to the multipath spread, must be inserted between successively transmitted
symbols. However, this will reduce the overall symbol rate, which is already
limited by the system bandwidth. To maximize the symbol rate, a receiver must be
designed to counteract very long inter symbol interference. The speed of sound
underwater varies with depth and also depends on the environment. Its nominal
value is only 1500 m/s, and this fact has a twofold implication on the
communication system design.

First, it implies long signal delay, which severely reduces the efficiency of any
communication protocol that is based on receiver feedback, or hand-shaking
between the transmitter and receiver. The resulting latency is similar to that of a
space communication system, although there it is a consequence of long distances
traveled.
5
Secondly, low speed of sound results in severe Doppler distortion in a mobile
acoustic system. Namely, if the relative velocity between the transmitter and
receiver is ± v, then a signal of frequency, fc will be observed at the receiver as
having frequency,
fc(1± v/c).
At the same time, a waveform of duration T will be observed at the receiver as
having duration,
T(1± v/c).
Hence, Doppler shifting and spreading occur. For the velocity v on the order of
few m/s, the factor v/c, which determines the severity of the Doppler distortion,
can be several orders of magnitude greater than the one observed in a land-mobile
radio system! To avoid this distortion, a non-coherent modulation/detection must
be employed. Coherent modulation/detection offers a far better utilization of
bandwidth, but the receiver must be designed to deal with extreme Doppler
distortion.
Summarizing the channel characteristics, one comes to the conclusion that an
underwater acoustic link combines in itself the worst aspects of radio channels:
poor quality of a land-mobile link, and high latency of a space link. In addition,
current technology offers limited transducer bandwidth (typically a few kHz, or
few tens of kHz in a wideband system), half-duplex operation, and limited power
supply of battery-operated instruments.

Fig. 3: Multichannel adaptive decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) is used for high

speed under water acoustic communications. It supports any linear modulation
format, such as M-aryl PSK or M-aryl QAM.
6
 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
4kb. 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 acoustic baud rate.
7
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.

The modem, shown in Figure 4, is implemented in a fixed-point DSP, with a

floating-point coprocessor for high-rate mode of operation. When active, it
consumes about 3 W in receiving mode, and 10-50 W to transmit. The board
measures 1.75 _ 5 in, and accommodates four input channels. The modem has
successfully been deployed in a number of trials, including autonomous
underwater vehicle (AUV) communications at 5 kbps.

Fig. 4: The WHOI micro-modem has dual mode of operation: low

8
 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.

Parts of an acoustic modem :

• DSP Board
• AFE(Analog Front End) Board

9
 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

10
UW-ASN COMMUNICATION ARCHITECTURE
3-D ARCHITECTURE

11
 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.
12
Underwater Sensor Nodes

13
 Schematic of an integrated subsea wireless system
comprising acoustic, optical, and magnetic induction
systems.

14
 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).

15
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 use
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.

16
 Future autonomous underwater
Systems: network topologies
With advances in acoustic modem technology, sensor technology and vehicular
technology, ocean engineering today is moving towards integration of these
components into autonomous underwater networks.

While current applications include supervisory control of individual AUVs, and

telemetry of oceanographic data from bottom-mounted instruments, the vision of
future is that of a “digital ocean” in which integrated networks of instruments,
sensors, robots and vehicles will operate together in a variety of underwater
environments. Examples of emerging applications include fleets of AUVs
deployed on collaborative search missions, and ad hoc deployable sensor networks
for environmental monitoring.

Fig. 5: Centralized network topology

17
 Fig. 6: Decentralized network topology.

Depending on the application, future underwater networks are likely to evolve in

two directions: centralized and decentralized networks. The two types of
topologies are illustrated in Figure 5 and Figure 6. In a centralized network, nodes
communicate through a base station that covers one cell. Larger area is covered by
more cells whose base stations are connected over a separate communications
infrastructure. The base stations can be on the surface and communicate using
radio links, as shown in the figure, or they can be on the bottom, connected by a
cable.

Alternatively, the base station can be movable as well. In a decentralized network,

nodes communicate via peer-to-peer, multi-hop transmission of data packets. The
packets must be relayed to reach the destination, and there may be a designated end
node to a surface gateway. Nodes may also form clusters for a more efficient
utilization of communication channel. To accommodate multiple users within a
selected network topology, the communication channel must be shared, i.e. access
to the channel must be regulated.
18
Methods for channel sharing are based on scheduling or on contention. Scheduling,
or deterministic multiple-access, includes frequency, time and code-division
multiple access (FDMA, TDMA, CDMA) as well as a more elaborate technique of
space division multiple access (SDMA).

Contention-based channel sharing does not rely on an a priori division of channel

resources; instead, all the nodes contend for the use of channel, i.e., they are
allowed to transmit randomly at will, in the same frequency band and at the same
time, but in doing so they must follow a protocol for medium-access control
(MAC) to ensure that their information packets do not collide. All types of
multiple-access are being considered for the underwater acoustic systems.

Experimental systems today favor either polling, TDMA, or multiple-access

collision avoidance (MACA) based on a hand-shaking contention procedure that
requires an exchange of requests and clearances to send (RTS/CTS). Intelligent
collision avoidance appears to be necessary in an underwater channel, where the
simple principle of carrier sensing multiple access (CSMA) is severely
compromised due to the long propagation delay—the fact that the channel is
sensed as idle at some location does not guarantee that a data packet is not already
in transmission at a remote location. One of the major aspects of the evolving
underwater networks is the requirement for scalability. A method for channel
sharing is scalable if it is equally applicable to any number of nodes in a network
of given density.

For example, a pure TDMA scheme is not scalable, as it rapidly looses efficiency
on an underwater channel due to the increase in maximal propagation delay with
the area of coverage. In order to make this otherwise appealing scheme scalable, it
can be used locally, and combined with another technique for spatial reuse of
channel resources. The resulting scheme is both scalable and efficient; however, it
may require a sophisticated dynamic network management.

In contrast, contention-based channel allocation offers simplicity of

implementation, but its efficiency is limited by the channel latency. Hence, there is
no single best approach to the deployment of an underwater network. Instead,
selection of communication algorithms and network protocols is driven by the
particular system requirements and performance/complexity trade-offs.

19
 Fig. 7:A deep-sea observatory.

Today is active on all topics in underwater communication networks: from

fundamental capacity analyses to the design of practical network protocols on all
layers of the network architecture (including medium access and data link control,
routing, transport control and application layers) as well as cross-layer network
optimization. In addition to serving as stand-alone systems, underwater acoustic
networks will find application in more complex, heterogeneous systems for ocean
observation. Figure 7 shows the concept of a deep sea observatory.

At the core of this system is an underwater cable that hosts a multitude of

sensors and instruments, and provides high-speed connection to the surface. A
wireless network, integrated into the overall structure, will provide a mobile
extension, thus extending the reach of observation. While we have focused on
acoustic wireless communications, it has to be noted that this will not be the only
way of establishing wireless communication in the future underwater networks.

Optical waves, and in particular those in the blue-green region, offer much higher
throughput (Mbps) albeit over short distances (up to about 100 m). As such, they
offer a wireless transmission capability that complements acoustic communication.

20
ATTACKS AND COUNTER MEASURES

21
 LIMITATIONS

• Battery power is limited and usually batteries cannot 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.

22
 APPLICATIONS

 Future applications could enhance myriad industries, ranging

from the offshore oil industry to aquaculture to fishing
industries, she noted.
Additionally, pollution control, climate recording, ocean
monitoring (for prediction of natural disturbances) and
detection of objects on the ocean floor are other areas that
could benefit from enhanced underwater communications.

 Environmental monitoring to gathering of oceanographic data.

 Marine archaeology.

 Search and rescue missions.

 Defance.

23
 DISADVANTAGES

 Battery power is limited and usually batteries cannot be

recharged also because solar energy cannot be exploited .

 The available bandwidth is severely limited.

 Channel characteristics including long and variable

propagation delays.

 Multipath and fading problems.

 High bit error rate.

24
 CONCLUSION

In this topic we overviewed the main challenges for efficient

communication in under water acoustic sensor networks.

We outlined the peculiarities of the underwater channel with

particular reference to networking solutions the ultimate
objective of this topic is to encourage research efforts to lay
down fundamental basics for the development of new advanced
communication techniques for efficient under water
communication and networking for enhanced ocean monitoring
and exploration applications.

 The aim of this is to build a acoustic communication

 This is not only the way for underwater communication
 By using optical waves which offers higher throughput
(Mbps) over short distances (up to about 100 m).

25
 REFFERENCES

1. www.redtacton.com
2. www.wikipedia.com
3. www.howstuffworks.com
4. www.google.com

26