Underwater Acoustic Modems

Literature Review

Prepared by:
Muhammad Hammad Akhtar

1
What are Acoustic Modems
 Transceivers that use mechanical waves
instead of electromagnetic waves.

Figure 1: Basic Acoustic Modem

2
Underwater Environment
 Electromagnetic including optical signals
are adversely affected by underwater
medium [1].
 Acoustic modems are used for
communication in underwater sensor
networks (UWSNs).
 Drawback: They are slower!

3
Challenges
 Cost and Maintenance
 Power Consumption
 Range
 Reconfigurability

4
COMPARISON OF
DEVICES (1)
Table 1 provides information about modems
developed by various research groups

5
COMPARISON OF
DEVICES (II)
Table 2 provides information about commercial off
the shelf devices

6
Conclusion
 A review of acoustic modems has been presented.
 For long range communication we either have to
lower carrier frequency or increase transmitter
power.
 Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components
provide good range but at the cost power
consumption.
 COTs provide some reconfiguration but those
are predefined.
 Software defined underwater networks (SDWNs)
described in [3-5] are gaining popularity despite
the increased cost involved in their development.

7
References
 [1] A. Sanchez, S. Blanc, P. Yuste, J. J. Serrano, "A low cost and high efficient acoustic
modem for underwater sensor networks", Proc. IEEE-Spain OCEANS, pp. 1-10,
Jun. 2011.
 [2] N. Farr, A. Bowen, J. Ware, C. Pontbriand, M. Tivey, "An integrated underwater
optical/acoustic communications system", Proc. IEEE-Sydney OCEANS, pp. 1-6, May
2010.
 [3] E. Demirors, G. Sklivanitis, T. Melodia, S. N. Batalama, D. A. Pados, "Software-
defined underwater acoustic networks: toward a high-rate real-time reconfigurable
modem", IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 53, no. 11, pp. 64-71, 2015.
 [4] N. Nowsheen, C. Benson, M. Frater, "A High Data-Rate Software Defined
Underwater Acoustic Modem", OCEANS 2010, pp. 1-5, Sept 2010.
 [5] M. Chitre, I. Topor, T. Koay, "The UNET-2 Modem - An Extensible Tool for
Underwater Networking Research", OCEANS 2012 - Yeosu, pp. 1-7, May 2012.
 [6] B. Benson et al., "Design of a low-cost underwater acoustic modem", IEEE
Embedded Syst. Lett., vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 58-61, Sep. 2010.
 [7] A. Sanchez, S. Blanc, P. Yuste, A. Perles, J. J. Serrano, "An ultra-low power and exible
acoustic modem design to develop energy efficient underwater sensor networks",
Sensors, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 6837-6856, 2012.

8
References
 [8] I.Vasilescu, C. Detweiler, D. Rus, "AquaNodes: An underwater sensor network",
Proc. WuWNet, pp. 85-88, Sep. 2007.
 [9] L. Wu et al., "Designing an adaptive acoustic modem for underwater sensor
networks", IEEE Embedded Syst. Lett., vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-4, Mar. 2011.
 [10] Aquatec AQUAModem 1000, Aquatec AQUAModem 1000 Features, Mar. 2015.
 [11] DSP Comm AquaComm Marlin, DSPComm Devices Features, Mar. 2015.
 [12] Desert Star Systems SAM-1, Desert Star Systems SAM-1 Features, Mar. 2015.
 [13] EvoLogics S2CR 18/34 WiSE, EvoLogics Acoustic Modems Features, Mar. 2015.
 [14] EvoLogics S2CR 7/17 USBL, EvoLogics Acoustic Modems Features, Mar. 2015.
 [15] LinkQuest UWM3000, LinkQuest Underwater Acoustic Modems Features, Mar.
2015.
 [16] Teledyne Benthos ATM9xx, Features of Acoustic Modems Teledyne Benthos,
Mar. 2015.
 [17] TriTech MicronModem, TriTech Micron Modem Features, Mar. 2015.
 [18] AM-OFDM-S, AM-OFDM-S Features, Mar. 2015.
 [19] GPM 3000 Acoustic Modem, GPM 3000 Acoustic Modem Features, Mar. 2015.