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Subsea Wireless Modem
01 Dec 2006
A wireless modem capable of operating underwater which can also relay signals out of water has reportedly been developed by Wireless Fibre Systems of Livingston in Scotland. It will clearly be of interest to, among others, divers and AUVs transmitting data to waiting vessels.
The radio modem uses a magnetic loop antenna for generating a 4kH electromagnetic field. Data is encoded in the magnetic component and then detected by a second sensitive receiver loop in much the same way as a hearing aid acquires sound radiated by magnetic coils in cinemas. Signals are enhanced by digital processing.
The Scottish company claims that tests in the Firth of Forth have shown that a loop antenna can transmit a 1 kilobit per second signal through 200 to 300m of seawater, with latest data compression techniques able to compress speech into it. At reduced ranges of just 1m, data rates can be increased by up to 10 megabits per second.
By DAVID GOODFELLOW
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