Have you ever thought of underwater internet access? Sounds crazy? Believe it or not but a team of researchers at the University at Buffalo have successfully tested an "underwater network architecture" that could one day provide internet connections deep under the sea.

The researchers are developing a deep-sea Internet that could lead to improvements in tsunami detection, offshore oil and natural gas exploration, surveillance, pollution monitoring and other activities.

"A submerged wireless network will give us an unprecedented ability to collect and analyse data from our oceans in real time," said Tommaso Melodia, UB associate professor of electrical engineering and the project's lead researcher. "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."

Land-based wireless networks rely on radio waves that transmit data via satellites and antennae. Unfortunately, radio waves work poorly underwater. So, Buffalo's team said they used sound-wave based techniques to communicate.

This system is commonly used worldwide, but sharing data is difficult because each system is different. The team plan on developing a framework to solve this problem by creating a sort of deep sea internet.

"Many systems worldwide employ this paradigm," said Melodia, "but sharing data between them is difficult because each system often has a different infrastructure." The framework Melodia is developing would solve that problem. It would transmit data from existing and planned underwater sensor networks to laptops, smartphones and other wireless devices in real time. "It would be, in other words, a deep-sea Internet."

The system was successfully tested the system recently in Lake Erie, a few miles south of downtown Buffalo. The researchers dropped two 40-pound sensors into the water and then transmitted information to them.

By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved