Wireless Underwater Internet Uses Light Beams and Lasers For the First Time

A new technology is called wireless underwater internet that sends data with beams and lasers tested.

This new system will be a new kind of internet that will innovate how to communicate underwater.

Divers will use Aqua-Fi to allow communication of real-time data from the bottom to the surface without the need for hand signals. This system will make use of LEDs and lasers to send signals unconventionally, reported by News Week.

This system was made possible by scientists from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. Designed in a paper in IEEE Communications in June with emphasis and data transfer in a watery sea environment, cited in Knowledia.

According to one of the paper's authors, Professor Basem Shihada, the development and use of the underwater internet is a breakthrough. There is interest from several sectors to know how the transmission of data is done via Aqua-Fi.

The Aqua-Fi enable data transmission with radio waves from a smartphone that transmits data via a Raspberry Pi computer on the back of the diver.

The Raspberry Pi computer will send the data in the beam of light that will be received by a terminal on the boat or any surface with a satellite link. Best of all, it is the system that will boost the signal by far similar to the concept of a home internet router.

Until now, other options to talk in the water are either radio or by acoustic sounds but both have limitations. Radio signals will transmit farther, but acoustics will travel far except with a limited data rate, confirmed by Tech Explore.

Compared to sounds, light has the advantage of distance but useless if blocked. So a clear path with no obstruction is the only limitation. So Aqua-Fi can utilize both radio and light signals for transmitting according to the study.

How the Aqua-Fi system works

The first step is to use a smart device and the Raspberry Pi computer linked to it. The important component of the gateway device is the Raspberry Pi computer that sends the signals.

To send the data, the system will be using green LEDs or lasers that will be the node used to get the data from the ends of the Aqua-Fi, which is the transmitting and the receiving ends which are crucial.

Data was crunched by the system that interpret what it was by reading the oscillation of the light that goes on or off at high speeds,

To get the data the receiver does the same thing when data is intercepted. It reconstructs the data streams like a binary code.

Testing the system was done by pairing two computers, they were put in static water to send and accept data. After the test, the speed of transferring the data is 2.11 MB per second when speed was measured.

It is a system in the experimental stage, because of how to make it work in the real world, and more needs to be done.

One way to catch the signal beams is by using a sphere receiver that is omnidirectional to catch the beam in moving tracts of water.

Another ambitious application is projecting internet signals into space, as is the sea where the initial application will be.

The concept of the wireless underwater internet using beams and lasers may tie into the Starlink satellites except modified for space transmissions.