Underwater Acoustic Modems

• Published in: IEEE sensors journal Vol. 16; no. 11; pp. 4063 - 4071
• Main Authors: Sendra, Sandra, Lloret, Jaime, Jimenez, Jose Miguel, Parra, Lorena
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.06.2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Channels; Devices; Modems; Monitoring; Networks; Proposals; Scientific papers; Sensors; Underwater; Underwater Acoustic Modem; Underwater acoustics; Underwater Communication; Underwater Modems Deployment; Wireless Communication; Wireless sensor networks; underwater communication; Underwater acoustic modem; underwater modems deployment; wireless communication
• ISSN: 1530-437X; 1558-1748
• DOI: 10.1109/JSEN.2015.2434890

Due to the growing interest using underwater acoustic networks, there are more and more research papers about underwater communications. These papers are mainly focused on deployments and studies about the constraints of the underwater medium. The underwater acoustic channel is highly variable and the signal transmission can change according to environmental factors, such as the temperature, pressure, or salinity of the water. For this reason, it is important to know how these devices are developed and the maximum distance and data transfer rates they can achieve. To this end, this paper presents an exhaustive study of existing underwater acoustic modems where their main features are highlighted. We also review the main features of their hardware. All presented proposals in the research literature are compared with commercial underwater acoustic modems. Finally, we analyze different programs and improvements of existing network simulators that are often used to simulate and estimate the behavior of underwater networks.