The goal of this project is the development and deployment of cheap, easily deployable, short range underwater sensor networks in shallow aquatic environments, such as rivers, bays, lakes, and water reservoirs. As radio waves propagate poorly in the water, the project relies on acoustic waves for communication. In order to provide an affordable yet robust network, the communication system couples acoustic modems that run in software with the generic microphones and speakers that are built-in to recent sensor modules. The underwater nodes collect data from their environment and send the data to a surface base station, which collects and streams the data through a wireless broadband radio connection to a central server on shore. The server is expected to support multiple application tools for querying, visualizing, downloading, and analyzing the near real-time sensor data.
The development of the system follows a bottom-up approach, starting with the design of the physical communication links (software modulation, synchronization, etc..), followed by the design of suitable MAC and routing protocols. In parallel to the development of these networking mechanisms, application layer modules to handle the data at the central server will also be developed. Students involved in this project will participate in the development of one or more of these layers according to their areas of strength and according to their preferences. Some of the activities and platforms that the students will work with include:
1.Acoustic communication development: Use of DSP mechanisms for developing robust and efficient modulation, demodulation, and synchronization of acoustic signals that carry sensor data. Expected platform for development: Matlab
2.MAC and Routing layer development: Creating protocols that are suitable for the high latency and low bandwidth underwater environment. Exploiting cross-layer interactions between physical, MAC and routing layers for more communication that is more energy-efficient and bandwidth-efficient. Expected platform for development: TinyOS (NesC)
3.Application layer development: Creating application tools for dissemination, display, and analysis of the data. Samples of such tools are available on www.calswim.org. The goal here is to provide efficient methods that can serve the end user needs in accessing the near real-time data that is arriving from the underwater sensors. Expected platform for development: Java, SQL.
For postgraduates, please send CV and cover letter to:
raja[dot]jurdak[at]ucd[dot]ie
For further information and resources on this project, please follow this link,
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