Underwater acoustic communication is a technique of sending and receiving

messages below water. There are several ways of employing such

communication but the most common is by using hydrophones. Underwater
communication is difficult due to factors such as multi-path propagation, time
variations of the channel, small available bandwidth and strong signal
attenuation, especially over long ranges. Compared to terrestrial communication,
underwater communication has low data rates because it uses acoustic
waves instead of electromagnetic waves.

TYPES OF MODULATION USED FOR UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC

COMMUNICATION
In general the modulation methods developed for radio communications can be
adapted for underwater acoustic communications (UAC). However some of the
modulation schemes are more suited to the unique underwater acoustic
communication channel than others. Some of the modulation methods used for
UAC are as follows:
 Frequency shift keying (FSK)
 Phase shift keying (PSK)
 Frequency hopped spread spectrum (FHSS)
 Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS)
 Frequency and pulse-position modulation (FPPM and PPM)
 Multiple frequency shift keying (MFSK)
 Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)
Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UW-ASN)
Ocean bottom sensor nodes are deemed to enable applications for
oceanographic data collection, pollution monitoring, offshore exploration,
disaster prevention, assisted navigation and tactical surveillance applications.
Multiple Unmanned or Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (UUVs, AUVs),
equipped with underwater sensors, will also find application in exploration of
natural undersea resources and gathering of scientific data in collaborative
monitoring missions. To make these applications viable, there is a need to enable
underwater communications among underwater devices. Underwater sensor
nodes and vehicles must possess self-configuration capabilities, i.e., they must be
able to coordinate their operation by exchanging configuration, location and
movement information, and to relay monitored data to an onshore station.

Wireless underwater acoustic networking is the enabling technology for

these applications. Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UW-ASN) consist of
a variable number of sensors and vehicles that are deployed to perform
collaborative monitoring tasks over a given area. To achieve this objective,
sensors and vehicles self-organize in an autonomous network which can adapt to
the characteristics of the ocean environment.

Underwater networking is a rather unexplored area although underwater

communications have been experimented since World War II, when, in 1945, an
underwater telephone was developed in the United States to communicate with
submarines. Acoustic communications are the typical physical layer technology
in underwater networks. In fact, radio waves propagate at long
distances through conductive sea water only at extra low frequencies (30-300
Hz), which require large antennae and high transmission power. Optical waves
do not suffer from such high
attenuation but are affected by scattering. Moreover, transmission of optical
signals requires high precision in pointing the narrow laser beams. Thus, links in
underwater networks are based on acoustic wireless communications.

The traditional approach for ocean-bottom or ocean column monitoring is

to deploy underwater sensors that record data during the monitoring mission,
and then recover the instruments. This approach has the following
disadvantages:

 Real time monitoring is not possible. This is critical especially in

surveillance or in environmental monitoring applications such as seismic
monitoring. The recorded data cannot be accessed until the instruments
are recovered, which may happen several months after the beginning of
the monitoring mission.
 No interaction is possible between onshore control systems and the
monitoring instruments. This impedes any adaptive tuning of the
instruments, nor is it possible to reconfigure the system after particular
events occur.
  If failures or misconfigurations occur, it may not be possible to detect
them before the instruments are recovered. This can easily lead to the
complete failure of a monitoring mission.
 The amount of data that can be recorded during the monitoring mission
by every sensor is limited by the capacity of the onboard storage devices
(memories, hard disks, etc.).

Therefore, there is a need to deploy underwater networks that will enable

real time monitoring of selected ocean areas, remote configuration and
interaction with onshore human operators. This can be obtained by
connecting underwater instruments by means of wireless links based on
acousticcommunication.
Many researchers are currently engaged in developing networking
solutions for terrestrial wireless ad hoc and sensor networks. Although
there exist many recently developed network protocols for wireless sensor
networks, the unique characteristics of the underwater acoustic
communication channel, such as limited bandwidth capacity and variable
delays, require for very efficient and reliable new data communication
protocols.

Major challenges in the design of underwater acoustic networks are:

 Battery power is limited and usually batteries can not be recharged, also
because solar energy cannot be exploited;
 The available bandwidth is severely limited;
 Channel characteristics, including long and variable propagation delays,
multi-path and fading problems;
 High bit error rates;
 Underwater sensors are prone to failures because of fouling, corrosion,
etc.

SURVEY OF UNDERWATER WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

 INTRODUCTION

In underwater environments, due to water absorption, radio does not work

well. Compared to radio waves, sound has superior propagation characteristics in
water, making it the preferred technology for underwater communications. “In fact,
radio waves propagate at long distances through conductive seawater only at extra
low frequencies (30—300 Hz), which require large antennae and high transmission
power. Optical waves do not suffer from such high attenuation but are affected by
scattering. Moreover, transmission of optical signals requires high precision in
pointing theatrics narrow laser beams.” Thus, most of underwater networks use
acoustic signals to communicate to each other.
ACOUSTIC UNDERWATER WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

Underwater acoustic propagation depends on many factors that make

designing an underwater wireless sensor network challenging. In the following, we
show how different factors may affect the design process.

a. Bandwidth: The acoustic band under water is limited due to absorption; most
acoustic systems operate below 30kHz. According to [2], no research or commercial
system can exceed 40km  kb/s as the maximum attainable range  rate product.

b. Propagation delay: The speed of RF is 3  10 8 m/s while the acoustic signal

 in an underwater acoustic channelis about 1.5  10 m/s. The
3
propagation speed
propagation delay in underwater is five orders of magnitude higher than in RF. the
low speed of sound causes multi-path  propagation to stretch over time delay. It
greatly effects the real-time application of UWSN.

c. Shadow zones: It can be defined as the area with high bit error rates and
temporary losses of connectivity due to the extreme characteristics of the underwater
channel. Salinity, density and temperature variations of the water can influence
acoustic communication, such as temporary losses of connectivity. This is evident in
the sound speed formula. Sound speed under water is given by empirical formula
[3]:
C 1449.2  4.6T  0.055T 2  0.00029T 3  (1.34  0.01T)(S  35)  0.016Z (1)
where, C speed of sound (m/s)
T temperature (deg C)
S salinity (practical salinity units “psu” equivalent to parts perthousand)

Z depth (m)

d. Energy: Battery power is limited because underwater batteries are extremely

difficult to recharge. Unlike terrestrial WSN, UWSN cannot use solar energy to
regenerate the power of the batteries.

e. Failure: Underwater sensors are prone to failure because of fouling and corrosion.
f. Attenuation: attenuation is the reduction in amplitude and intensity of a signal.
Attenuation at distance x is given as [4]
 A(x)  x k ax
Where, k is spreading factor
a is frequency dependent term obtained as a  10(. ( f ))
where, ( f ) is absorption coefficient given by Thorp’s expression.

The formula illustrate attenuation is dependent on frequency as well as distance. It is
very important in determining signal strength as afunction of distance.

DIFFERENCES WITH TERRESTRIAL WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

Although WSN and UWSN are different, mainly due to the unique
characteristics of water, certain aspects of WSN research can be applied to UWSN.
The main differences between terrestrial and underwater sensor networks are as
follows:

a. Communication method: UWSN uses acoustic signal while WSN uses radio
waves.

b. Cost: While terrestrial sensor nodes are expected to become increasingly

inexpensive, underwater sensors are expensive devices. It is due to the UWSN’s
transceivers complexity and the increased protection required by the hardware.
c. Power: UWSN needs more power because it uses acoustic signal and covers a
longer distance. Compared to acoustic signal, RF needs less power, since the
processing at receivers is not that complex.

d. Memory: The connection of an acoustic signal can be disabled by special

underwater situations, like shadow zones. Due to this fact, underwater sensors need
to acquire more data to prevent the loss of data. However, this is not an issue for
terrestrial sensors.

e. Density: In terrestrial sensor application, like tracking system, sensors can be

deployed densely. While an underwater sensor is more expensive than terrestrial
sensor, it will cost more money to deploy densely. Even if money is not an issue, it is
still not easy to deploy them.

As a matter of fact, those differences are the clues to develop new generation
UWSN. First, we should generate some new kind of sensors to reduce cost. For
example, we can use nano-technology to develop nano-sensors. Also, it is necessary
to devise periodical cleaning mechanisms against corrosion and fouling, which may
impact the lifetime of underwater devices. Moreover, the deployed network ought to
be highly reliable, so as to avoid failure of monitoring missions due to failure of
single or multiple sensors. Second, we need to do a new power control algorithm for
UWSN. “Many complex power control algorithm using RTS-CTS-ACK have been
proposed in past for wireless terrestrial networks”[5][6]; however, these algorithms
cannot fit into UWSN due to the underwater channel characteristics and significant
propagation delays. Third, network protocol is a vitally important factor in saving
power and providing reliable connection using sparse underwater sensors.
Nowadays, many different protocols for terrestrial WSN have been developed.
However, they cannot fit UWSN. Not only do the architectures of UWSN impact the
development of a new protocol, but also the characteristics of underwater. It is
another different place with terrestrial sensor network. Therefore, we may develop
different kinds of protocol according to the architectures of UWSN. The following
will discuss the idea that protocols should be designed according to the type of
architecture.

USWN ARCHITECTURES
According to [7], “UWSN can be roughly classified into two broad categories:
 long-term non-time-critical aquatic monitoring
 short-time time-critical aquatic exploration.

In [1], UWSN are classified into three types:

 Static two-dimensional underwater acoustic sensor networks (UW-ASNs) which are
for ocean bottom monitoring.
 Static three-dimensional UW-ASNs which are for ocean-column monitoring.
 Three dimensional networks of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)

a. Long-Term Non-Time-Critical Aquatic Monitoring

This kind of UWSN can be work for a long time and the data collected by the
sensors are not real-time data. For long-term monitoring, energy saving is a central
issue to consider in the protocol design.

b. Short-Term Time-Critical Aquatic Exploration

Compare to Long-term non-time-critical UWSN, this kind of UWSN focus on
real-time data. Therefore, how to make data transfer efficiently need to be more
concern when designing network protocol. Also, this kind UWSN just work for a
short term that means energy saving is not as important as long-term one.

c. Comparison Of The Two Classifications

The difference between the two classifications is static and mobile. In [7],
long-term non-time-critical and short-term time-critical UWSN are base on mobile
ability. That’s why they concern the location aware in either way. Moreover, long-
term and short-term did not distinguish 2D or 3D. Obviously, there are some
differences in protocol design.
In static two-dimensional underwater, all the sensors are anchored to the
bottom of ocean. The underwater sensor nodes are interconnected to one or more
underwater sinks (uw-sinks) by acoustic signal. Since, all the sensors are fixed at
bottom, therefore, we don’t need to concern underwater movement, which make
protocol design easily. 2D UW-ASNs always are used to environmental monitoring,
it ought to be kind of long-term non-time-critical UWSN. Therefore, the challenges
of long-term non-time critical UWSN also fit it.
Static three-dimensional underwater sensor network, compared to two-
dimensional one, this kind UWSN also tell the depth in order to cover 3D area. The
protocol for three-dimensional UWSN is hard to design. The speed and propagation
delay of acoustic signal is different at different depth which will make some sensors
at certain depth use more energy to send and receive data. Also, this issue makes it
hard to build up an efficient routing. Another challenge in this architecture is how to
make the sensor stay at fix position.
The last one, three-dimensional networks of autonomous underwater vehicles
(AUVs), can be regarded as long-term or short-term. “And one vital important
design objective is to make them rely on local intelligence and less dependent on
communications from online shores.” [1]
Although, we need to do the protocol according to the different application,
we still need focus on some common requirements, such as security, reliable as well
as resilient.

UWSN DESIGN: RESEARCH CHALLENGES

Power Consumption
Unlike the sensors of terrestrial WSN, UWSN sensor cannot use solar energy
to recharge the battery. And it is more difficult to replace the sensors. The direct way
to resolve this problem is to generate energy by the sensors themselves. The
probable method may be using current movement or chemistry method to generate
power to recharge battery. Also, efficient routing protocol and communication
method can contribute to this issue.

Communication Link
Nowadays, most of UWSN use acoustic signals to communicate. Acoustic
signals bring lots of challenges to the research arena, especially propagation delay
and high error rates. Obviously, it needs improvement. Therefore, trying to use
another kind of signal may be a new direction of research. According to [8], optical
signals have been used to communicate sensors in their two applications. It may be
an alternative way. However, it needs to consider all the factors, especially power
issue, to determine whether optical signal is better than acoustic one.
Distributed Localization and Time Synchronization
Location-aware is vitally important for any aquatic application. Since the data
without location information is useless. Among most of large-scale terrestrial WSN
application, GPS can be used to give the location and synchronize time. In the GPS-
free terrestrial application, Time-Differenc-of-Arrival (TDoA) is used to calculate the
distance according to the different speed of the two signals, such as cricket sensors.
Then the position information can be calculated using those distance data by some
algorithms like SemiDefinite Programming (SDP) [9]. In UWSN, the position
information can be calculated using same way. However, the challenge is that it is
very hard to get the distance between two sensors. GPS cannot be used, since the
satellite signal cannot work in underwater. Although, some methods are used to get
the distance between the sensors, like Angle-of-Arrival (AoA), Time-of-Arrival
(ToA), the accuracy is greatly affected by many factors of underwater environment.
Therefore, how to get accurate distance between two sensors should get more
concerned in order to get underwater sensors’ position.
Routing Protocols
In UWSN protocol design, saving energy is a major concern, especially for the
long-term aquatic monitoring applications. Actually, there are numerous terrestrial
WSN energy-efficient protocols being produced in this area. However, due to the
node mobility of UWSN, most of them are not feasible in UWSN, since architecture
of UWSN gives more impacts compare to terrestrial one. Therefore, architecture
should give more attention when design the routing protocol.