Low-power acoustic modem for dense underwater sensor networks

TLDR

Terrestrial sensor networks have made significant progress, revolutionizing sensing and data collection. This work aims to develop low‑cost, low‑power acoustic modems for short‑range underwater communications to enable long‑lived, dense sensor networks. The authors present a design rationale and detail the hardware and software development of the modem. Preliminary tests with transducers were conducted for in‑air communications.

Abstract

Significant progress has been made in terrestrial sensor networks to revolutionize sensing and data collection. To bring the concept of long-lived, dense sensor networks to the underwater environment, there is a compelling need to develop low-cost and low-power acoustic modems for short-range communications. This paper presents our work in designing and developing such a modem. We describe our design rationale followed by details of both hardware and software development. We have performed preliminary tests with transducers for in-air communications.