Low-Power Based Coherent Acoustic Modem for High-Speed Communication in Underwater Sensor Networks

Abstract

As the need for underwater communication has recently grown, an acoustic modem has become more necessary for the sensor nodes to perform effective underwater communication. To develop acoustic modems for effective underwater communication, some limitations must be overcome, such as the limited power supply and high cost of commercial acoustic modems. Recently, low-power, low-cost acoustic modems have been developed. However, the data rates of these modems are very slow. The objective of this work is to develop an acoustic modem capable of supporting high data rates. We introduce a coherent acoustic modem that uses waterproof ultrasonic sensors to process acoustic waves. The proposed modem is based on a low-power, low-cost, short-range concept, and it also supports a high data rate as confirmed by underwater experiments. Experimental results show that our modem has the best performance among all recently developed low-power modems.