AquaOptical: A lightweight device for high-rate long-range underwater point-to-point communication

This paper describes AquaOptical, an underwater optical communication system. Three optical modems have been developed: a long range system, a short range system, and a hybrid. We describe their hardware and software architectures and highlight trade-offs. We present pool and ocean experiments with each system. In clear water AquaOptical was tested to achieve a data rate of 1.2Mbit/sec at distances up to 30m. The system was not tested beyond 30m. In water with visibility estimated at 3m AquaOptical achieved communication at data rates of 0.6Mbit/sec at distances up to 9m.

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