Improved Diver Communication System by Combining Optical and Electromagnetic Trackers

Abstract

The increasing need for observation in seawater or ocean monitoring systems has ignited a considerable amount of interest and the necessity for enabling advancements in technology for underwater wireless tracking and underwater sensor networks for wireless communication. This type of communication can also play an important role in investigating ecological changes in the sea or ocean-like climate change, monitoring of biogeochemical, biological, and evolutionary changes. This can help in controlling and maintaining the production facilities of outer underwater grid blasting by deploying unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). Underwater tracking-based wireless networks can also help in maintaining communication between ships and divers, submarines, and between multiple divers. At present, the underwater acoustic communication system is unable to provide the data rate required to monitor and investigate the aquatic environment for various industrial applications like oil facilities or underwater grit blasting. To meet this challenge, an optical and magnetic tracking-based wireless communication system has been proposed as an effective alternative. Either optical or magnetic tracking-based wireless communication can be opted for according to the requirement of the potential application in sea or ocean. However, the hybrid version of optical and wireless tracking-based wireless communication can also be deployed to reduce the latency and improve the data rate for effective communication. It is concluded from the discussion that high data rate optical, magnetic or hybrid mode of wireless communication can be a feasible solution in applications like UUV-to-UUV and networks of aquatic sensors. The range of the proposed wireless communication can be extended using the concept of multihop.