Our work revolves around the development of technology related to underwater communication between divers. Even though the current problems raised by the lack of attention paid to this topic don’t really impact the majority of the population and that there are other means of communicating underwater, the reality is that this type of communication hasn’t evolved much in over 50 years - most divers still remain limited to talking with each through hand signals. Having said all this, our solution consists on the development of a set of transmitter/receptor devices based on the concept of Underwater Optical Wireless Communications (UOWC, for short), which would allow easier signaling between divers.
Our target audience mainly consists of recreational divers and diving schools that currently do not resort to the use of wireless communications underwater. Given the didactic and educational potential of our project, we intend to, above all, optimize the teaching of scuba diving and improve the diver’s experience. However, we also see a future where our solution would be useful in a larger scale, such as underwater construction, emergency and rescue operations, as well as in search and recovery missions, to name a couple of possible applications.
On more technical terms, our idea is settled on the use of modulating schemes applicable in visible light communication, such as NRZ-OOK, with the communication being mediated by a microcontroller and the actual signals sent by blue light LED’s - the fact that the communication must be done close to the purple and blue areas of the light spectrum in order for the signals to be accurately transmitted fits with the constraints imposed by the LED’s. Due to the thin range of these devices in an environment as dispersive as sea water there is also a need for a lens capable of diffusing the emitted light, depending on a whole array of factors.
About the receptors, although there were several options available in the market, we ended up going with PIN photodiodes due to their quick response and relative low cost (when compared to other alternatives). Paired up with these diodes, we also employ an actual physical filter with the intent of reducing unwanted visible light.
Our project presents itself with a lot of technical challenges. One of them remains as finding a proper balance between being able to operate at a high wavelength and enforcing enough error correction to the data stream in order to have a fast and yet reliable source of information. In terms of the hardware department, our main difficulties reside in finding an adequate equilibrium between the dispersion angle of the emitted signal and the signal’s range, while maintaining enough power to ensure that the message in question is capable of being transmitted along a large enough distance.
Source: Own source
Source: Own source
Source: Own source
Source: Own source
Source: Own source
We are a group of students at Instituto Superior Técnico, currently on our 3rd year of the Bachelor’s Degree on Electrical and Computer Engineering. Even though none of us knew each other before being accepted into Técnico, we met right on the beginning of the 1st semester, and have been working together across practically all courses ever since!
When we first started discussing about which technological challenge the team wanted to work on, we didn’t really have one big idea that everyone wanted to work on, so each one of us chose the themes we found the most interesting, deciding, after a close call, that we would focus on Underwater Optical Wireless Communications, due to several reasons:
First of all, we all agreed that the lack of technological research and solutions regarding this topic meant that there was an opportunity for us to delve into practically uncharted territory, which made us all quite excited.
Secondly, even though our project started as being tailored to recreational divers, we also quickly realized the potential that the concept in question had in the world of underwater operations, ranging from construction operations all the way to rescue missions.
Lastly, one of our team members is from Albufeira, conveniently, which ends up giving us some proximity to the diving community and allowing us to work more in-depth with the solution beneficiaries.
Source: Our Own
As we get closer and closer to the project’s deadline, we keep on working, as there is still a lot to be done. For now, we are finishing everything related to the final prototype, still making some adjustments, looking for better material and wiring everything up.
Source: AI Generated
This week was quite busy, actually! Well, for one, we met in person to work on the prototype for the first time, given the late arrival of the material and the fact that we all don’t really live close to each other. On the other hand, on that same meeting, we ran into some obstacles and decided to contact a former electronics professor of ours, who kindly accepted our request for help and gave us some incredibly useful advice. After receiving some very helpful advice, some of us got together again during the rest of the week to implement the suggested changes. Quite a wild week!
Source: AI Generated
Hello, everyone! This week, we actually met with a professor from another engineering school in Lisbon, who we sought because they had been the supervising teacher for a student writing their Msc. thesis on the same topic we are working on. Pretty cool, right? Also, now that we received the material we requested, we are now working at full pace, which has been quite exciting!
Source: AI Generated
Hello again! This week proved itself to be slightly bittersweet for us. On the one hand, we still haven’t received the materials we ordered even though we ordered them quite a while ago, which is setting us a tiny bit back every single day, but we still managed to progress on the hardware department using some electronics material owned by Afonso. Even though we’re not working under ideal conditions, we still try to find ways to work around the unfortunate circumstances.
Source: AI Generated
This week marked the start of the 4th term of the year, and with it the return to normal school activity. Even though we still haven’t received the material we ordered a while back, over the course of this week we progressed even further in the software department and started doing some much needed simulations, all the while “surviving” a nation-wide blackout.
Source: AI Generated
After going through an exhausting exam season, we resumed working on our project, making palpable advancements in the software department.
Source: AI Generated
Hi everybody, here we are again! In the middle of what seems to be an unproductive run of weeks, this 6th official week of work remains as not being particularly prolific as well. The only aspect that we seem to have made some progress in is the hardware part of the project. Given that we’re still waiting for the material to arrive, we remain a bit conditioned by that fact, but there’s still room to learn, which we have done.
Source: AI Generated
This week proved itself to be another slow one, but the work carries on. Since our last post, we have made a bit of progress on the hardware department by seeking counseling with experts in electronics.
Source: AI Generated
Hi, everyone! Here we are back at it again. Unfortunately, this week we weren’t extremely productive in the software department, and the fact that we are still working on choosing equipment ends up limiting the hardware side of things. We also didn’t have any meeting or interview with anyone.
Source: AI Generated
Hello, everybody! Here we are once again, one week later. Over the course of this week we kept digging away and thinking about our project, although not much progress was made. We remain on the process of choosing the components necessary for our prototype. However, despite not much evolution in both the software and hardware departments, the week still proved itself fruitful, as we interviewed one of the oldest diving schools in Europe, who were kind enough to welcome us and answer our questions!
Source: AI Generated
Hi! This week, we carried on with our progress in the software department, with our main objectives for now being improving the transmission rate of the transmitter device. In addition to this, we also had a meeting with an expert in digital communication. Given that we are currently still developing and working around some issues in the software department, this opportunity proved itself worthwhile, especially in this relatively early stage in the project.
Source: AI Generated
Hi, everybody! This is the 1st of many upcoming posts on our blog. During this initial week of work, we made some progress on the software part of our prototype - most importantly, we set up the communication between the transmitter and the receiver and solved some issues that came up. Another important event that happened was a meeting with a research engineer working at a group focused in underwater autonomous operations, with whom we discussed the possibility of a collaboration. We also went over our ideas for the prototype, to which the interviewee gave some opinions and even some critical suggestions.
