Underwater Acoustic Channel Characterization for Ultra-Sonic Communication Applications

There is an increase in commercial subsea activity, as well as a growing need to monitor the health of our oceans and rivers. Remote sensors must be deployed underwater. Because of the high level of activity along the coast, in harbours, and even in rivers, the sensors are often deployed in shallow environments. To reduce the costs, small untethered nodes are preferable, and the remote data is transmitted to the surface via a wireless technology. In this work, underwater ultra-sonic communication is proposed to enable a short range telemetry link. A shallow water channel model will be developed, and will be used to predict the communication link reliability in specific environmental conditions. Further, channel coding will be applied to maintain a reliable communication link in a channel that suffers from multipath and Doppler spread.

Faculty Supervisor:

Jean-Francois Bousquet

Student:

Habib Mirhedayati Roudsari

Partner:

Amirix Systems Inc.

Discipline:

Engineering - computer / electrical

Sector:

Information and communications technologies

University:

Dalhousie University