Now that's SURFING the web! Scientists test underwater Wi-Fi network that can detect tsunamis, search for oil and monitor sealife
Researchers successfully sent data on an underwater network in Lake Erie System uses sound waves to communicate like those used by dolphins The team hope to use the technology to create a 'deep-sea internet' It could send data from the ocean bed to predict tsunamis, for example
By Victoria Woollaston
Published: 18 October 2013 | Updated: 17:59 GMT, 18 October 2013
In a move that adds new meaning to the term surfing the web, researchers are working on creating a 'deep-sea internet'.
A team of scientists from New York have already successfully experimented sending data below the surface in Lake Erie, and are now hoping to create an industry standard for underwater communications in the world's seas and oceans.
The technology could be used to send data between submarines, for example, collect and send data from the sea floor to help detect tsunamis and other disasters sooner, as well as monitor fish and mammal numbers.
Other examples given by the team, led by Tommaso Melodia, associate professor of electrical engineering at the University of Buffalo, include offshore oil and natural gas exploration, surveillance, pollution monitoring and more.
'A submerged wireless network will give us an unprecedented ability to collect and analyse data from our oceans in real time,' said Melodia.
'Making this information available to anyone with a smartphone or computer, especially when a tsunami or other type of disaster occurs, could help save lives.'
Traditional networks, used on land, use radio waves to send data through satellites and antennae.
Radio waves have a weak range underwater so agencies such as the Navy and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use sound wave-based methods to communicate underwater.
For example, NOAA relies on acoustic waves to send data from tsunami sensors on the sea floor to surface buoys. The buoys convert the acoustic waves into radio waves to send the data to a satellite, which then redirects the radio waves back to land-based computers - a slow and lengthy process.
Melodia's system would solve this problem by sending data between a network of underwater sensors to laptops, smartphones and other wireless devices in real-time using sound waves.
Melodia recently tested the system in Lake Erie by dropping two, 40lb sensors into the water.
Reserachers Hovannes Kulhandjian and Zahed Hossain typed a command into a laptop that was transmitted to the sensors.
A series of high-pitched chirps bounced off a nearby concrete wall seconds later, indicating that the command had been received by the sensors and activated the sound from the sensor.
A deep-sea internet could, for example, join networks of buoys together that can detect tsunamis quicker and more reliably than current methods, said Melodia.
It could also be used by the energy industry to search for underwater oil and natural gas.
'We could even use it to monitor fish and marine mammals, and find out how to best protect them from shipping traffic and other dangers,' Melodia continued.
'An internet underwater has so many possibilities.'
Melodia's work is detailed in the The Internet Underwater: An IP-compatible Protocol Stack for Commercial Undersea Modems paper being presented at the annual International Conference on Underwater Networks & Systems in Taiwan in November.
Traditional networks, used on land, use radio waves to send data through satellites and antennae.
Radio waves have a weak range underwater so agencies such as the Navy and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use sound wave-based methods to communicate underwater.
Melodia's system sends commands and data from a laptop to two 40lb sensors placed on the sea bed.
These commands are converted into sound waves that transmit data back to laptops and other wireless devices in real-time.
Interesting! Though I think army has already tested such an approach years ago. I wonder if there remain at least some places or territories without Internet on Earth in the next hundred years period.
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