Implementation and testing of an underwater communication protocol

Abstract

The submarine environment has become more important in recent years. As a result, the biggest navies in the world have started using Underwater Unmanned Vehicles (UUVs) for all kind of missions such as exploration and resource exploitation. This sudden proliferation has in turn led into the need of better and more reliable underwater communications. NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) has recently developed JANUS, a protocol whose aim is to standardize underwater communications between all kind of devices. The purpose of this thesis is to implement and test an underwater communication protocol based on JANUS. The implementation has been carried out in Python, following the JANUS specification. It has been tested both in a controlled environment, and in the sea, in Pontevedra’s estuary. Our results indicate that communication is feasible up to a data transfer rate of 60 bps. The experiments allowed us to study the method capabilities as well as its limitations.