Comparative study between Electromagnetic Waves and Acoustic

Waves for Underwater Communication

In general, the communication system in underwater is wireless such as acoustic wave
communication, optical communication, electromagnetic (EM) wave communication etc.. Even
though, the acoustic wave communication is widely used over electromagnetic wave communication
in the underwater domain, later is also suitable for some special applications and has various
advantages than former. In this article, various parameters like modes of propagation, communication
range, limitations, affecting factors, noise, advantages, disadvantages etc. are compared between
acoustic waves and electromagnetic waves for underwater applications.
Firstly, the basic technique involving in EM wave propagation is through electromagnetic
waves with the carrier frequency of 30 to 300MHz[01] and 1 to 10GHz[02], where as, acoustic waves
is through sound wave in the range of 2-15kHz[04]. The bandwidth of electromagnetic spectrum is
large. So, EM waves will provide various data rates for various applications,shown in table.1.But,the
data rates of acoustic waves are very less compared to EM waves, typically from 5-10kbps[06].

Table 1: Example data rates for potential ranges of underwater EM wave communication,reproduced from[05]

One of the important aspects in underwater communication is modes of propagation. Various

modes of propagation of EM waves for underwater communication are given as Direct,Up- over-
down,Down -over up and Beach [07]. These are based on how the wave is propagating from source
to destination. But, Acoustic wave modes of propagation are divided based on distance of propagation
and are given as Very long range(in the order of 1000 km), Long(10-100km), Medium(1-10km),
Short(100-1km) and Very short(below 100m) [01]. Another aspect is the range of propagation. The
range of EM wave propagation in water is very less when compared with others. According to[02], it
is 460m at 7MHz at a depth of 76m and approximately 30m at 150 & 14MHz with an attenuation of
2.6dBm. On contrast, acoustic waves can travel for greater distances in underwater,are up to
20km[05].So, EM waves have limited transmission range and may be useful for formation of local
area networks(LANs).
Even though acoustic wave technology is proven technology for underwater communication, It
has some limitations and affected by many parameters. The acoustic wave has poor performance in
shallow water(depth up to 100m) and has limited bandwidth[05]. And it will be affected by the
factors like salinity, temperature, suspended particles of water body,variation of salinity, temperature
and sound speed with depth is shown in fig.1[15]. Not only that, noise is another major affecting factor
in this category of communication. Several types of noises which affects the acoustic wave are[10]:
a. Man-made noise: Caused by machinery noise (pumps, reduction gears, power plants, etc.), and
shipping activity .
b. Ambient Noise: Is related to hydrodynamics (movement of water including tides, currents, storms,
wind, rain, etc.), seismic and biological phenomena.
Ambient noise is also because of sounds generated by marine animals like whales and some type of
fishes as a part of their communication or self-protection.
 Fig.1: Temperature, salinity and sound speed profiles with depth

On the other hand, the limitations of EM wave propagation includes limited Transmission
range, susceptible to EMI, limited Power, transmitter and receiver design. According to [08],EM wave
will be affected by the factors like:
a. Conductivity of Water(salinity): As the salinity increases, conductivity also increases. This will
increase the attenuation and decrease the strength of the EM wave.
b. Permittivity: Permittivity of medium is directly related to EM wave propagation. Permittivity of sea
water varies with different factors, which also affects the wave propagation under water.
c. Boundaries: The structure of boundaries for water source will decide the reflection and refraction
properties of EM wave at boundaries. And also, the mode propagation (dominant, degenerate) will be
decided on the waveguide dimensions i.e. boundaries.
Security of the transmitted signal plays very important role in any communication system. For
wired communication it is very easy to provide security, where as, for wireless it is difficult. So, study
on security is also required for underwater communications. There are few security requirements in
acoustic wave propagation[12].They are Secure Time Synchronization, Secure Localization and
Secure Routing. Even though there is not that much work done on EM Wave security for underwater
communication , basic studies reveals that EM waves are secure for data transfer and communication.
Now, it is time to discuss about the advantages and disadvantages of both technologies.
Initially, EM wave propagation has many advantages over others for underwater applications. Some
of them includes less sensitive to reflection and refraction in shallow water, less impact of suspended
particles, less affect of turbidity and pressure gradient of water, immune to acoustic noise and high
Bandwidth etc. And more importantly it has no effect on marine animals life. Even though EM waves
have numerous advantages, they have some dis-advantages too[02]. As they are applying for water
medium, their performance is purely depending on medium characteristics. As discussed earlier,they
have limited Range of operation,high Attenuation due to conductivity of water and susceptible to EMI.
The other technology, acoustic wave communication has some major advantages for underwater
communication includes long range communication and no EMI. It is proven technology; yet, it has
many disadvantages for underwater applications[05][06][07][11].It adversely affected by turbidity,
salinity and pressure gradients. And also, It is unable to penetrate behind an object. As per experiments
conducted by[06], the attenuation losses increases linearly with frequency. This variation of
attenuation is shown in fig.2. Not only that, this communication system may disturb the
communication of natural habitat in water.
 Fig.2: Conventional attenuation loss as a function of range for different frequencies at T=10 0c, S= 35psu, z=10m..

Finally, this article presents the challenges involved in the designing of both EM wave and
acoustic wave communication systems. In present scenario, EM wave communication is not being
used for any type of underwater applications. But, can be used if it overcome the following
challenges[05]. The effects of EMI are to be quantified. And need to find solution for range limitation
by taking care of operating frequency and antenna size. Even though it is widely using, there are still
some challenges to overcome in acoustic wave communication for its better performance and
efficiency[04]. The multi-path and fading effects should be taken care and develop processing
techniques to improve the bandwidth.

Thus the analogies between EM wave communication and acoustic wave communication for
underwater were explored in various aspects and observed that, depending on the application and the
environment of water body either of the techniques can be used.

REFERENCES

[01] Milica Stojanovic ,Underwater Acoustic Communication, For the Wiley Encyclopedia of
Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
[02] Ahmed I. Al-Shammaa, Andrew Shaw, and Saher Saman, Propagation of Electromagnetic Waves
at MHz Frequencies Through Sea water, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol.52,
No.11,November 2004.
[03] Sandra Sendra, Jaime Lloret, Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues, and Javier M. Aguiar, Underwater Wireless
Communications in Freshwater at 2.4 GHz, IEEE Communications Letters, Vol.17, No.9,
September 2013.
[04] Mandar Chitre, Shiraz Shahabudeen, Lee Freitag, Milica Stojanovic, Recent Advances in
Underwater Acoustic Communications & Networking.
[05] Xianhui Che, Ian Wells, Gordon Dickers, Paul Kear, and Xiaochun Gong, Swansea Metropolitan
University, Re-Evaluation of RF Electromagnetic Communication in Underwater Sensor
Networks, IEEE Communications Magazine, January 2011
[06] Qixin Zhu1, Wei Xiong, Hongli Liu, Yonghong Zhu, Guangming Xie, A Brief Review of
Underwater Electric Current Communication, Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE 20th international
conference on Computer supported cooperative work in design.
[07] Robert Tyler and Thomas . Sanford, Propagation of electromagnetic fields in the coastal ocean
with applications to underwater navigation and communication, Radio Science Volume 33,
Number 4, Pages967-987, July-August 1998
[08] Mathew. N. O. Sadiku, Principles of Electromagnetics, 4th edition, Oxford University press.
[09] Ram Somaraju and Jochen Trumpf, Frequency, Temperature and Salinity Variation of the
Permittivity of Seawater, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol.54, No.11,
November 2006.
[10] Ian F. Akyildiz, Dario Pompili, Tommaso Melodia, Challenges for Efficient Communication in
Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks.
[11] Lurton, X, An introduction to underwater acoustics principles and applications, Springer
publications 2010, XXXVI,
[12] M. T. Anowar, M. N. H. Khan, M. M. Alam, M. A. Kabir, M. D. Hossen, M. S. Zahan,
M. K. Hossain, M. M. Hasan, A Survey of Acoustic Underwater Communications and Ways of
Mitigating Security Challenges, International Journal of Research in Engineering and Science
(IJRES)
[13] Shan Jiang, Stavros Georgakopoulos, Electromagnetic Wave Propagation into Fresh Water,
Journal of Electromagnetic Analysis and Applications, 2011, 3, 261-266

[14] Jun Li, Mylne Toulgoat, Mathieu Dziel, F. Richard Yu, Simon Perras, Propagation Modeling
and MAC-Layer Performance in EM-Based Underwater Sensor Networks, DIVANet14,
September 2126, 2014, Montreal, QC, Canada.
[15] Michael J Buckingham, Ocean- acoustic propagation models, Classification physics abstracts,
June 1992