by
Mark Ollig
State
University of New York at Buffalo (UB) researchers are working on a project for
allowing submerged devices in the ocean to directly access the Internet.
“A
submerged wireless network will give us an unprecedented ability to collect and
analyze data from our oceans in real-time, said Tommaso Melodia, UB associate
professor of electrical engineering and the project’s lead researcher.
When
thinking wireless networks, we usually envision radio signals communicating via
antennas with land-based towers, or a GPS navigation system using Earth
orbiting satellites.
Consider
how NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) currently obtains
tsunami information from electronic sensors on the seafloor.
These
sensors transmit data via aural or acoustic wave frequencies to floating buoys,
or markers, on the ocean’s surface.
The
acoustic waves are then converted into high-bandwidth (64 kbps or higher)
signals which are transmitted up to a satellite. The signals are then
redirected to satellite receivers on the ground.
The
information acquired from the electronic sensors on the seafloor is made
available to the computers linked to the Internet Cloud.
This
data is protected via an Internet firewall.
Melodia
confirms many systems worldwide use this model; however, it is challenging to
share this information with others because different kinds of systems employ
their own types of unique data infrastructures.
Also,
I learned propagation (transmission) delays can be encountered using current
underwater networking systems.
The
new underwater network Melodia is suggesting would provide for existing and new
undersea sensors to transmit their data instantaneously to smart devices,
laptops, and other types of devices via a commonly used information
transmission control protocol.
We
know the Internet has rules for how our computers, laptops, and wireless smart
devices communicate and share data.
That’s
right folks; it’s the TCP/IP or Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
standard.
This
protocol standard (including IPv6 revisions) is what Melodia wants to see being
used for the data transmissions from undersea sensors.
Melodia
said using this type of framework (networking) would allow linking together
undersea buoys which would detect tsunamis.
He
feels this sort of communication network between them would be valuable in
providing a more reliable warning to coastal residents who would be affected by
a sensor’s detection of tsunamis.
Another
advantage of using TCP/IP is that it’s designed for high-performance
communication and is not subject to propagation delays. Also, information would
be collected from the undersea sensors in real-time, thus making the sensors
data more readily available, and timely.
Energy
savings would also be realized using TCP/IP architecture because it would not
consume as much power as traditional RF (Radio Frequency) wireless underwater
devices such as sensors, relay-nodes, and modems do.
A
recent underwater test was conducted just south of downtown Buffalo, in Lake
Erie.
Two
doctoral candidates who work in Melodia’s lab; Hovannes Kulhandjian and Zahed
Hossain, released two 40-pound sensors into the lake from their boat on Lake
Erie.
They
then typed a command into a laptop computer, which communicated with the sensor
in the lake. Within seconds, a sequence of high-pitched chirps were being
monitored – confirming their test had worked.
“The
Internet Underwater: An IP-compatible Protocol Stack for Commercial Undersea
Modems” is a 2013 research paper Melodia and Yifan Sun collaborated on.
This
paper describes, in extreme detail, how TCP/IP would work with devices in an
underwater networking environment.
The
research paper also envisions users accessing information from underwater
sensors using any Internet connected device.
A
drawing shows an example of how a Subnet 2 network of underwater sensors or
nodes would send their TCP/IP data to a surface ship, which would then transmit
the data via 3G cellular signaling into the traditional IP-based network we
access.
You
can view this drawing at: http://tinyurl.com/bytes-seasensors.
Work
on undersea devices using an IP-compatible network is supported in part by the
National Science Foundation.
Someday,
undersea buoys could provide a wealth of real-time information easily accessible
over the Internet. They will tell us about their environment, water
temperatures, and many will even have cameras attached to them for us to
observe their surroundings.
On
a future vacation, we may be accessing data from undersea buoys using the Internet
while scuba diving off a tropical island.
