ISO/IEC TR 30167:2021
(Main)Internet of Things (IoT) — Underwater communication technologies for IoT
Internet of Things (IoT) — Underwater communication technologies for IoT
This document describes the enabling and driving technologies of underwater communication such as acoustic communication, optical communication, Very Low Frequency (VLF)/Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) communication, and Magnetic Fusion Communication (MFC). This document also highlights: – technical overview of different communication technologies; – characteristics of different communication technologies; – trends of different communication technologies; – applications of each communication technology; – benefits and challenges of each communication technology.
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ISO/IEC TR 30167
Edition 1.0 2021-06
TECHNICAL
REPORT
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Internet of things (IoT) – Underwater communication technologies for IoT
ISO/IEC TR 30167:2021-06(en)
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ISO/IEC TR 30167
Edition 1.0 2021-06
TECHNICAL
REPORT
colour
inside
Internet of things (IoT) – Underwater communication technologies for IoT
INTERNATIONAL
ELECTROTECHNICAL
COMMISSION
ICS 33.020 ISBN 978-2-8322-9865-7
Warning! Make sure that you obtained this publication from an authorized distributor.
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– 2 – ISO/IEC TR 30167:2021 ISO/IEC 2021
CONTENTS
FOREWORD . 4
INTRODUCTION . 5
1 Scope . 6
2 Normative references . 6
3 Terms and definitions . 6
4 Symbols and abbreviated terms . 6
5 Enabling/driving technologies of underwater communication . 7
5.1 General . 7
5.2 Acoustic communication. 8
5.2.1 Technical overview . 8
5.2.2 Trend of technology (modern communication trends) . 14
5.3 Optical (wire/wireless) communication . 21
5.3.1 Technical overview . 21
5.3.2 Trend of technology (modern communication trends) . 24
5.4 Very Low Frequency (VLF)/Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) . 28
5.4.1 Technical overview . 28
5.4.2 Trend of technology (modern communication trends) . 31
5.5 Magnetic fusion communication (MFC). 39
5.5.1 Technical overview . 39
5.5.2 Trend of technology (modern communication trends) . 42
Bibliography . 54
Figure 1 – Example of underwater acoustic sensor network system . 8
Figure 2 – Path loss of sound wave . 10
Figure 3 – Multipath of sound wave . 10
Figure 4 – Terrestrial/underwater interworking gateway . 13
Figure 5 – Underwater cable structure . 21
Figure 6 – Fibre-optic wired communication system overview . 21
Figure 7 – Current underwater cable map . 23
Figure 8 – Optical wired communication system overview . 25
Figure 9 – Optical wired communication system based on WDM technology . 25
Figure 10 – Trideco antenna tower array used in the US Navy's Cutler station . 29
Figure 11 – Valley-span antenna type used by the US navy station, Jim Creek . 29
Figure 12 – Aerial photograph of Clam Lake ELF facility in Wisconsin, USA (1982) . 34
Figure 13 – Cutler VLF transmitter's antenna towers . 36
Figure 14 – Cutler antenna array . 36
Figure 15 – VLF transmission centre in Japan . 38
Figure 16 – Trideco-type antenna placement in Harold E. Holt . 38
Figure 17 – Australian VLF transmitter (1979) . 39
Figure 18 – Shape of envelope . 40
Figure 19 – BPSK modulated signal . 41
Figure 20 – Magnetic field communication and Zigbee communication comparison
experiment . 42
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ISO/IEC TR 30167:2021 ISO/IEC 2021 – 3 –
Figure 21 – Experimental water tank for comparing magnetic field communication
characteristics according to medium and distance . 43
Figure 22 – Experimental water tank filled with water and soil . 43
Figure 23 – Strength of magnetic field due to distance in air, water, and soil . 44
Figure 24 – Physical layer packet format. 45
Figure 25 – Preamble area type . 45
Figure 26 – Header area type . 45
Figure 27 – Encoding circuit of header check cyclic redundancy code . 46
Figure 28 – Payload area format . 46
Figure 29 – Definition of Manchester coding . 47
Figure 30 – Definition of NRZ-L coding . 47
Figure 31 – Scrambler block diagram . 48
Figure 32 – ASK modulation diagram . 49
Figure 33 – BPSK modulation diagram . 49
Figure 34 – Preamble coding and modulation process . 49
Figure 35 – Process of coding and modulating headers . 50
Figure 36 – Process of coding and modulating the payload . 50
Figure 37 – Magnetic fusion communication super frame structure . 50
Figure 38 – Magnetic field communication network structure . 51
Figure 39 – Magnetic fusion (power transfer) communication network super-frame
structure . 52
Figure 40 – Magnetic fusion (power transfer) communication network structured
diagram . 53
Table 1 – Envelope parameters . 40
Table 2 – Intensity of magnetic field due to distance in air, water, and soil . 44
Table 3 – Definition of data rate and coding . 46
Table 4 – Definition of frame check cyclic redundancy code . 47
Table 5 – Data rate and coding details . 48
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INTERNET OF THINGS (IoT) –
UNDERWATER COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGIES FOR IoT
FOREWORD
1) ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical Commission)
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participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees established by the
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9) Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this ISO/IEC document may be the subject of
patent rights. IEC and ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
ISO/IEC TR 30167 has been prepared by subcommittee 41: Internet of Things and Digital Twin,
of IEC joint technical committee 1: Information technology. It is a Technical Report.
The text of this Technical Report is based on the following documents:
DTR Report on voting
JTC1-SC41/183/DTR JTC1-SC41/203A/RVDTR
Full information on the voting for the approval of this Technical Report can be found in the
report on voting indicated in the above table.
The language used for the development of this Technical Report is English.
This document has been drafted in accordance with the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, and
developed in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, available at
www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs and www.iso.org/directives.
IMPORTANT – The "colour inside" logo on the cover page of this document indicates that it
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ISO/IEC TR 30167:2021 ISO/IEC 2021 – 5 –
INTRODUCTION
Earth is the aquatic planet as water covers 70 % of its surface. Due to the rapid growth of
technology, underwater communication technologies can be used for the development of
various smart underwater applications. The underwater communication system is one of the
fastest-growing fields since many applications such as monitoring applications, military
applications, security applications, new resource exploration, etc. are continuously being
developed and used. However, many applications still need to be studied in-depth and
underwater resources also need to be explored. Therefore, the research in underwater
communication technology plays a vital role in the exploration of undersea resources and the
development of various underwater applications.
Using the radio frequency (RF) signal, the communication technology in the underwater
environment can be extremely influenced by various factors such as environmental noise,
pollution, power, etc. This can cause several issues related to attenuation, frequency fading,
Doppler shift, multipath effect, etc. Hence, acoustic communication technology has been used
by numerous researchers to solve these issues. In the case of high-speed acoustic
communication, problems like limited bandwidth, reliability in data, error rate, multipath, etc.
remain to be solved.
Optical communication technology is used for high-speed and short-range communication in
the underwater environment. The optical communication uses the laser to carry the information
through the water. In the case of long-distance communication in the underwater environment,
optical communication is not suitable. The magnetic fusion communication in the underwater
environment is only used for near-field communication. Therefore, all communication
technologies are essential for underwater communication.
The purpose of this document is to provide a technical overview of the different communication
technologies in the underwater environment such as acoustic communication, optical
communication, Very Low Frequency (VLF)/Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) communication,
and Magnetic Fusion Communication (MFC). Correspondingly, this document also provides the
characteristics of each communication technology in the underwater environment, trends of
underwater communication technology, layered design of underwater technology, and the
application development using different communication technologies.
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INTERNET OF THINGS (IoT) –
UNDERWATER COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGIES FOR IoT
1 Scope
This document describes the enabling and driving technologies of underwater communication
such as acoustic communication, optical communication, Very Low Frequency (VLF)/Extremely
Low Frequency (ELF) communication, and Magnetic Fusion Communication (MFC). This
document also highlights:
– technical overview of different communication technologies;
– characteristics of different communication technologies;
– trends of different communication technologies;
– applications of each communication technology;
– benefits and challenges of each communication technology.
2 Normative references
There are no normative references in this document.
3 Terms and definitions
No terms and definitions are listed in this document.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following
addresses:
• IEC Electropedia: available at http://www.electropedia.org/
• ISO Online browsing platform: available at http://www.iso.org/obp
4 Symbols and abbreviated terms
ACPG a specific graph technique
AUV autonomous underwater vehicle
ASK amplitude shift keying
BER bit error rate
BPSK binary phase-shift keying
CBC-MAC cipher block chaining-message authentication code
CCM-UW counter with CBC-MAC for underwater
CRC cyclic redundancy code
DTN delay/disruption tolerant network
ELF Extremely Low Frequency
FSK frequency-shift keying
FSO free space optics
HF high frequency
IM intensity modulation
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ISO/IEC TR 30167:2021 ISO/IEC 2021 – 7 –
ISI inter symbol interference
ITU-R International Telecommunication Union radio-communication
LED light-emitting diode
LSI large scale integration
LSB least significant bit
MAC medium access control
MANET mobile ad hoc network
MFAN magnetic field area network
MIMO multiple-input and multiple-output
MSB most significant bit
MSK minimum shift keying
NRZ non-return-to-zero
NRZ-L non-return-to-zero level
OFDM orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
OOK on-off keying
OOK/CWK on-off keying/continuous wave keying
PSK phase-shift keying
RF radio frequency
RTT round trip time
RZ return to zero
SHELF super hard ELF system
SLF super low frequency
SNR signal to noise ratio
SONAR sound and navigation and ranging
TDMA time division multiple access
UAN underwater acoustic network
ULF ultra-low frequency
UUV unmanned underwater vehicle
UWA MAC underwater acoustic MAC layer
UWASN underwater acoustic sensor network
VBF vector-based forwarding
VLF Very Low Frequency
WDM wavelength division multiplexing
WSN wireless sensor network
5 Enabling/driving technologies of underwater communication
5.1 General
Various enabling/driving technologies of underwater communication such as acoustic
communication, optical communication, Very Low Frequency (VLF)/Extremely Low Frequency
(ELF) communication, and Magnetic Fusion Communication (MFC) are discussed in Clause 5.
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5.2 Acoustic communication
5.2.1 Technical overview
5.2.1.1 Technical definition
Underwater acoustic communication is a technology to transmit information wirelessly in the
underwater environment using sound or ultrasonic waves. It includes underwater acoustic
modem hardware and software, underwater acoustic communication protocol, underwater
acoustic communication network, underwater application and service technology, etc. For
decades, point-to-point communication technologies between two devices in water have been
dominantly investigated, but quite recently, underwater acoustic network systems in which
several underwater devices participate in information exchange have been studied.
Figure 1 is a conceptual diagram of underwater acoustic sensor network systems, which is one
1
of the representative examples of underwater acoustic communication technology [1] .
Underwater acoustic sensor network system consists of underwater sensor nodes that collect
information using underwater sensors, an underwater sink node that controls underwater sensor
nodes located in a cluster, and a water surface gateway, which connects underwater network
to terrestrial network. The main subjects of research and development are the technologies to
improve the overall efficiency and stability of the underwater acoustic communication system
and to increase communication speed and reliability between entities that constitute the system.
SOURCE: Kim Y. A Query Result Merging Scheme for Providing Energy Efficiency in Underwater Sensor Networks.
Sensors. 2011, 11, pp. 11833-11855. Reproduced with permission.
Figure 1 – Example of underwater acoustic sensor network system
____________
1
Numbers in square brackets refer to the Bibliography.
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ISO/IEC TR 30167:2021 ISO/IEC 2021 – 9 –
5.2.1.2 Characteristics of underwater acoustic channel
5.2.1.2.1 Definition and characteristics of sound wave
A wave is a physical phenomenon whereby periodic vibrations generated by an object are
transmitted through a medium. In this case, the time from crest to crest is called period and the
inverse of the period is called frequency. Technically, when the frequency of a wave
corresponds to 20 Hz to 20 kHz, since the human ear can hear it, it is classified as an acoustic
wave (sound wave). When the frequency of a wave is larger than 20 kHz, it is classified as an
ultrasonic wave. Sometimes, both sound and ultrasonic waves are referred to as sound waves
in a broad sense.
The sound wave is a longitudinal wave where the wave and vibration of the medium are in the
same direction. Further, it only propagates through a medium such as gas, liquid, or solid. Also,
the speed of the sound wave differs depending on the medium: 340 m/s in air, 1 500 m/s in the
underwater environment, and 5 120 m/s in iron.
5.2.1.2.2 Transmission characteristics of sound wave in water
The media that can transmit information wirelessly in the underwater environment are radio
waves, light waves, and sound waves. Among them, the radio wave is advantageous in that it
is easy to design a transmission protocol due to its short propagation delay and to send high-
speed data by utilizing a wide bandwidth. But due to the high conductivity in water, the
transmitted signal is rapidly attenuated and communication distance becomes restricted. The
light wave is characterized by its wavelength or its frequency, in this situation it supports very
high-speed data transfer using ultra-wideband, but it requires a line of sight path between
transceivers and is vulnerable to turbidity. Unlike radio wave or light wave, which is a kind of
electromagnetic wave, the sound wave attenuates slowly in water ensuring communication
distance of several tens of kilometres. Its main drawbacks are the low data rate and the long
propagation delay due to narrow bandwidth and the underwater medium, respectively.
Underwater data transmission technique using sound wave has been widely used for the past
several decades and its performance and functions are verified in various aspects [2].
Sound velocity, which is the speed of sound waves used in water, changes due to water
temperature, salinity, and water pressure. Specifically, the velocity of sound increases with an
increase in water temperature, salinity, and water pressure. In general, an increment of water
temperature of 1 °C causes an increase of the sound velocity of 4 m/s, an increment of salinity
of 1 ‰ causes an increase of the sound velocity of 1,4 m/s, and an increment of 1 km in depth
causes an increase of the sound velocity of 17 m/s [3]. On the other hand, there is a thermocline
layer in which the water temperature decreases rapidly as the water depth increases in the area
ranging from the water surface to hundreds of metres in depth. In the thermocline, the sound
velocity decreases as the water depth increases due to the rapid decrease of the water
temperature. Meanwhile, in the region where the water depth is deeper than the thermocline,
the sound velocity tends to increase gradually with the increase of water depth since the water
temperature is almost constant and the salinity and water pressure gradually increase [4].
The sound wave radiated in water undergoes path loss depending on the distance and the
frequency, and the path loss can be divided again into two factors: spreading loss and
absorption loss.
When it comes to spreading loss, the intensity of sound wave decreases in proportion to the
distance in shallow water and in proportion to the square of the distance in deep water [5].
Absorption loss increases rapidly with increasing frequency and depends on salinity and water
temperature partly. Figure 2 shows the ratio of received voltage to transmitted voltage (V /V )
O I
according to distance and frequency in (a) fresh water and (b) seawater. From Figure 2, it is
observed that the path loss increases greatly as distance, frequency, and salinity increase [6].
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– 10 – ISO/IEC TR 30167:2021 ISO/IEC 2021
a) b)
Figure 2 – Path loss of sound wave
The sound wave in water is affected by noise, which can be classified into ambient noise and
site-specific noise. Ambient noise generated by turbulence, waves, ships, etc. is always present
in all locations and can be modelled as a Gaussian distribution. Its power spectrum density
decreases by 18 dB when frequency increases by ten times [7]. On the other hand, the site-
specific noise is irregular depending on the place, such as the icebreaking noise in the polar
region and the snapping shrimp in the warm water region.
Another transfer characteristic of the underwater sound wave is reflected. As shown in Figure 3,
the transmitted sound wave generates numerous paths due to the water surface and bottom [6].
The reflection coefficient of the water surface is theoretically "−1", which means that only the
phase is inverted. The reflection coefficient at the bottom greatly depends on the medium,
roughness, and grazing angle. Also, each sound ray experiences the phenomenon in which the
sound wave refracts to the direction having a lower speed of a sound wave due to Snell's law.
Another factor that distracts the transmission and reception of sound waves is the time-variant
characteristic of the multipath. In other words, each path between transceivers can be changed
drastically due to the movement of aquatic organisms, irregular water flow from underwater
eddies, and irregular changes in wave height from the wind on the water surface.
Key
H water depth
h depth of transmitter
t
h depth of receiver
r
Figure 3 – Multipath of sound wave
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ISO/IEC TR 30167:2021 ISO/IEC 2021 – 11 –
The last issue to be addressed concerning the characteristics of the underwater sound wave is
the Doppler effect caused by not only the intentional movement of the transmitter or receiver
but also the drift of the transceiver due to waves, currents, and tides. The Doppler spread is
proportional to the moving speed of the transceiver divided by sound velocity. As described
above, since the sound velocity is very low in the water, small-scale movement generates a
large Doppler effect.
5.2.1.3 Background
The origin of underwater acoustic communication technology is SONAR. SONAR is a
technology that detects the position of an object by using a sound wave in water and there has
been rapid progress of tec
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