Acoustic communication for Maya Autonomous Underwater Vehicle - performance evaluation of acoustic modem

Abstract

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) traverse considerable distances underwater without any intervention. Very often the operations are in coastal waters with small depth, large horizontal distances, seabed obstacles, fishing activities and surface traffic. This necessitates monitoring the AUV status and data quality through an acoustic link which needs to perform reliably under such conditions, at long range. To address these situations partially, acoustic communication capability is planned for CSIR-NIO AUV Maya using acoustic modem communicator pair. Experiments were planned and field demonstrations of the same carried out at Dona Paula bay (5-7 m depth) and Arabian sea (15 -20 m) to gauge the performance under actual field conditions simulating two scenarios of AUV communication. The results are presented here which allows the inference, of using these modems on Maya AUV's, even in shallow coastal waters