Design and Implementation of an Acoustic Modem for Small Underwater Devices Operating at Shallow Water

As the demand for underwater systems providing pollution monitoring, marine ecosystem observation, surveillance monitoring is increased, acoustic modem for short-range underwater communication is spotlighted as one of significant research topics. Typically, in shallow water, it is so hard to analyze acoustic wave which undergoes spreading, absorption, reflection and scattering through transmission that there are limited advanced results. Furthermore, in order for the modem to be loaded in a fixed node or a moving vehicle in shallow water, its size should be small enough. In this paper, we address underwater acoustic channel model and design and implement an efficient micro acoustic modem which is adequate for short-range underwater communication. The developed modem is verified in a lake by varying working range and data rate up to 500 meters and 2 kbps, respectively.