Recent advances in underwater acoustic communications &#x00026; networking

Concepts

EngineeringCommunicationOcean EngineeringAcousticsUnderwater AcousticsWireless CommunicationsUnderwater Acoustic CommunicationUnderwater CommunicationUnderwater Sound PropagationAcoustic Sensor NetworksUnderwater Network ProtocolsUnderwater NetworkingUnderwater Sensor NetworksUnderwater Wireless Sensor Networks

TL;DR

Underwater acoustic communications have attracted growing interest over the past three decades, expanding from point‑to‑point links to networks, and a series of review papers chronicles the field’s development up to the end of the last decade. This paper reviews key theoretical and applied developments in underwater acoustic communications over the past two decades and highlights open problems and future challenges. The authors conduct a comprehensive review of the literature on underwater acoustic communications spanning the past two decades. Recent research has improved performance and robustness relative to early systems.

Abstract

The past three decades have seen a growing interest in underwater acoustic communications. Continued research over the years has resulted in improved performance and robustness as compared to the initial communication systems. Research has expanded from pointtopoint communications to include underwater networks as well. A series of review papers provide an excellent history of the development of the field until the end of the last decade. In this paper, we aim to provide an overview of the key developments, both theoretical and applied, in the field in the past two decades. We also hope to provide an insight into some of the open problems and challenges facing researchers in this field in the near future.