A Comparative Analysis and Experimental Study on Wireless Aerial and Underwater Acoustic Communications

Widely available speakers and microphones in electronic devices motivate the use of generic audio hardware to establish acoustic communication links. Acoustic communication with generic hardware requires software modems for data modulation and demodulation. The resulting acoustic communications system paves the way for cheap and easily deployable underwater acoustic sensor networks through the use of audio hardware built in to the sensor modules. In this paper, we explore the potential of the acoustic communication system for both aerial and underwater environments. Our experiments profile both media with generic microphones and speakers. An initial test of the channel´s underwater data communication capability has revealed that the channel can transfer data at 12 bps and 24 bps, with respective error rates of 10% and 20%, up to a distance of 10 m