Underwater Internet of Things in Smart Ocean: System Architecture and Open Issues

TLDR

The smart ocean demands exploration of ocean features, and the Underwater Internet of Things—enabled by autonomous vehicles, smart sensors, underwater communication, and routing protocols—offers a powerful technology to create a self‑learning, intelligent network of interconnected underwater objects. This article offers a comprehensive overview of the UIoT, covering current advances, a future five‑layer system architecture, applications, challenges, and open issues. The authors describe a horizontal overview and a five‑layer architecture—sensing, communication, networking, fusion, and application layers—and propose future research trends that combine cloud computing, fog computing, and artificial intelligence.

Abstract

The development of the smart ocean requires that various features of the ocean be explored and understood. The Underwater Internet of Things (UIoT), an extension of the Internet of Things (IoT) to the underwater environment, constitutes powerful technology for achieving the smart ocean. This article provides an overview of the UIoT with emphasis on current advances, future system architecture, applications, challenges, and open issues. The UIoT is enabled by the most recent developments in autonomous underwater vehicles, smart sensors, underwater communication technologies, and underwater routing protocols. In the coming years, the UIoT is expected to bridge diverse technologies for sensing the ocean, allowing it to become a smart network of interconnected underwater objects that has self-learning and intelligent computing capabilities. This article first provides a horizontal overview of the UIoT. Then, we present a five-layer system architecture for the future UIoT, which consists of a sensing, communication, networking, fusion, and application layer. Finally, we suggest the current challenges and the future UIoT research trends, in which cloud computing, fog computing, and artificial intelligence are combined.