Underwater acoustic communication is a technique of sending and receiving message below water.

There are several ways of employing such communication but the most common is using hydrophones. Under water communication is difficult due to factors like multi-path propagation, time variations of the channel, small available bandwidth and strong signal attenuation, especially over long ranges. In underwater communication there are low data rates compared to terrestrial communication, since underwater communication uses acoustic waves instead of electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic transmission is more difficult in water Acoustic transmission is better suited to water than air Speed of sound in water ~ 1500m/sec Speed of sound in air ~ 340m/sec Why using sound as communication medium in UW-ASN?? #Radio waves propagate at long distances through conductive sea water only at extra low frequencies (30-300 Hz), which require large antennae and high transmission power. #Optical waves do not suffer from such high attenuation but are affected by scattering. Moreover, transmission of optical signals requires high precision in pointing the narrow laserbeams. UW-ASN::Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network Deploy underwater sensors to record data during the monitoring mission, and then recover the instruments. This approach has the following disadvantages: #Real time monitoring is not possible. #No interaction is possible between onshore control systems and the monitoring instruments. #If failures or misconfigurations occur, it may not be possible to detect them before the instruments are recovered. #The amount of data that can be recorded during the monitoring mission by every sensor is limited by the capacity of the onboard storage devices (memories, hard disks, etc). Underwater acoustic communication is a technique of sending and receiving message below water. There are several ways of employing such communication but the most common is using hydrophones. CHALLENGES: #Battery power is limited and usually batteries can not be recharged because solar energy cannot be exploited. #The available bandwidth is severely limited. #Channel characteristics, including long and variable propagation delays, multi-path and fading problems. #High bit error rates. #Underwater sensors are prone to failures because of fouling, corrosion, etc. #A unique feature of underwater networks is that the environment is constantly mobile, naturally causing the node passive mobility.

#The ocean can be as deep as 10 km. WHY IS VECTOR SENSOR:

@A vector sensor is capable of measuring important non-scalar components of the acoustic field such as the wave velocity, which cannot be obtained by a single scalar pressure sensor. @They have been mainly used for underwater target localization and SONAR applications. @Earlier underwater acoustic communication systems have been relying on scalar sensors only, which measure the pressure of the acoustic field. Vector sensors measure the scalar and vector components of the acoustic field in a single point in space, therefore can serve as a compact multichannel receiver @In general, there are two types of vector sensors: inertial and gradient. Inertial sensors truly measure the velocity or acceleration by responding to the acoustic medium motion, whereas gradient sensors employ a finite-difference approximation to estimate the gradients of the acoustic field such as velocity and acceleration. @{{{in fig.Vector sensor communications with three channels the pressure channel p, represented by a straight dashed line, and two pressure-equivalent velocity channels pz and py, shown by curved dashed lines./]]] @In the example of vector sensor communications shown, there is one transmitter pressure transducer, shown by a black dot, whereas for reception we use a vector sensor, shown by a black square, which measures the pressure and the y and zcomponents of the velocity. This is a 13 single-input multiple-output (SIMO) system. With more pressure transmitters, one can have a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system also. Active sonar uses a sound transmitter and a receiver. When the two are in the same place it is monostatic operation. When the transmitter and receiver are separated it is bistatic operation. When more transmitters (or more receivers) are used, again spatially separated, it is multistatic operation. Most sonars are used monostatically with the same array often being used for transmission and reception Principle of an Active SONAR

Active sonar creates a pulse of sound, often called a "ping", and then listens for reflections (echo) of the pulse. This pulse of sound is generally created electronically using a sonar Projector consisting of a signal generator, power amplifier and electroacoustic transducer/array. A beamformer is usually employed to concentrate the acoustic power into a beam, which may be swept to cover the required search angles To measure the distance to an object, the time from transmission of a pulse to reception is measured and converted into a range by knowing the speed of sound. To measure the bearing, several hydrophones are used, and the set measures the relative arrival time to each, or with an array of hydrophones, by measuring the relative amplitude in beams formed through a process called beamforming.

Passive sonar listens without transmitting. It is often employed in military settings, although it is also used in science applications, e.g., detecting fish for presence/absence studies in various aquatic environments.. Noise limitations Passive sonar on vehicles is usually severely limited because of noise generated by the vehicle. For this reason, many submarines operate nuclear reactors that can be cooled without pumps, using silent convection, or fuel cells or batteries, which can also run silently. APPS: Seismic monitoring. Pollution monitoring Ocean currents monitoring Equipment monitoring and control Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV