AquaOptical: a lightweight device for high-rate long-range underwater point-to-point communication

• Main Authors: Doniec, Marek Wojciech (Contributor), Vasilescu, Iuliu (Contributor), Chitre, Mandar (Author), Detweiler, Carrick (Contributor), Hoffmann-Kuhnt, Matthias (Author), Rus, Daniela L. (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2010-10-14T12:38:14Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

This paper describes AquaOptical, an underwater optical communication system. Three optical modems have been developed: a long range system, a short range system, and a hybrid. We describe their hardware and software architectures and highlight trade-offs. We present pool and ocean experiments with each system. In clear water AquaOptical was tested to achieve a data rate of 1.2 Mbit/sec at distances up to 30 m. The system was not tested beyond 30 m. In water with visibility estimated at 3 m AquaOptical achieved communication at data rates of 0.6 Mbit/sec at distances up to 9 m.
Singapore. Defence Science & Technology Agency