Networking in Oceans

Abstract

The ocean is a huge saltwater body that is different from terrestrial environments in terms of deployment circumstance, weather conditions, and user distributions. Therefore, it is difficult to apply terrestrial networking technologies directly in oceans. The cost-effectiveness of satellites is still an issue to be addressed to increase their popularity due to their high cost in construction, launching, and maintenance and high deployment risks. Such situations stimulate many research efforts on networking technologies in the ocean space consisting of coastline, water surface, sky, and underwater. This article conducts a comprehensive survey on the related issues through reviewing the networking environments and communication networks already operating in the ocean space as well as ongoing R8D activities and results reported in the literature. These systems include coastal networks, water surface networks, sky networks, and underwater networks, which are reviewed and discussed along with summaries on the related topics and research issues necessary for further studies. This article, taking into account maritime communication networks and underwater networking together, aims to provide the reader with an overview on the state of the art and corresponding challenging issues for networking in the ocean space.