Planning Workshop: Addressing Wireless Communication Needs in Underwater Technologies. The Workshop is Scheduled to be Held in the Fall of 2020.

海洋、湖泊和河流覆盖了地球表面70%以上的水，主要海洋资产的价值估计超过24万亿美元。因此，持续发展蓝色经济，发展海洋能源收集、自主水下航行器（AUV）、水下物联网（IoUT）等海洋技术具有重要意义。然而，水下无线通信一直是推动海洋技术发展的一个长期瓶颈，因为物理通信介质不利于无线通信的射频、光学或声学手段。未来蓝色经济的发展尤其需要可靠、中距离、高数据速率的水下无线通信技术。本次规划研讨会将邀请50 - 100名来自不同水下技术部门的研究人员，并通过为期两天的Zoom会议讨论资助建议。目标是让多个利益相关者参与其中，包括水下基础设施和环境监测、近海捕鱼和水产养殖、海上油气和能源收集、潜水和娱乐、科学研究和军事监视。研讨会的具体目标是回答未来五到十年研究界关注的水下无线通信最重要的应用、性能要求和环境影响问题，以及研究界为实现预期的技术进步而建议的资助机制和研究课题。规划研讨会的结果将帮助国家科学基金会创建一个潜在的资助计划，旨在推进水下无线技术。讲习班有可能吸引来自不同海洋技术部门的研究人员并促进多学科研究。研讨会的研究成果将通过网站分享和会议展示的方式传播，并将用于创建具有创业心态学习方法的课程模块。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Oceans, lakes and rivers cover more than 70 percent of the Earth surface with water and the value of key ocean assets is estimated to be over $24 trillion. Therefore, it is of great importance to sustain the growth of the blue economy and develop the ocean technologies, such as ocean energy harvesting, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV), and Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT), etc. However, underwater wireless communication has been a long-standing bottleneck to advancing ocean technologies because the physical communication media are hostile to radio frequency, optical, or acoustical means of wireless communications. The future growth of blue economy especially calls for underwater wireless communication technologies that are reliable, medium-distance, and high data-rate.This planning workshop is to invite 50 -- 100 researchers from different sectors of underwater technologies and discuss funding recommendations via two days of Zoom meetings. The goal is to engage the multiple sectors of stakeholders including underwater infrastructure and environmental monitoring, offshore fishing and aquaculture, offshore oil and gas and energy harvesting, diving and recreation, scientific research, and military surveillance. The specific objectives of the workshop are to answer the questions regarding the most important applications, performance requirements, and environmental impacts of underwater wireless communications for the research community to focus on in the next five to ten years, and the recommended funding mechanisms and research topics for the research community to achieve the desired technology advances. The outcome of the planning workshop will aid the NSF to create a potential funding program that aims at advancing the underwater wireless technolgies. The workshop has the potential to engage researchers from different ocean technology sectors and foster multi-disciplinary research. The workshop findings will be disseminated through website sharing and conference presentation, and will be used to create course modules with the entrepreneurial mindset learning (EML) approach.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.