Toward Future Internet-of-Underwater-Things (IoUT) through Intelligent Underwater Communications and Networking

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The mysterious world of the ocean has fascinated human beings since the beginning of human history. Although the technology advances in the past century have greatly improved the knowledge of the physical world, the understanding of the underwater world remains far behind the understanding of even the far-away deep space. Therefore, in recent years, exploration of the ocean and other underwater environments for scientific, environmental, commercial, and military purposes has gained strong interest among researchers internationally.******The Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT), a new class of the Internet of Things (IoT), has emerged in recent years as a network of smart interconnected underwater objects to create a worldwide network that will digitally link the oceans, rivers, and lakes. There have been a number of research and development initiatives tackling technical challenges of the IoUT. These are still in the early stage of investigation. The most challenging remaining tasks include efficient and reliable communication and networking, energy efficiency, and cost reduction.******The objective of the proposed research is to develop innovative algorithms, architectures, designs, and standards that will enable future Internet-of-Underwater-Things through advanced communications and networking for environmental, industrial, military, and security applications to enhance information provisioning, improve working efficiency and reduce operational cost. The goals are to (A) investigate time-varying underwater acoustic (UWA) channel models and estimation schemes in the presence of AUV and node mobility; (B) design and develop efficient and low-complexity equalization and data detection schemes for large-scale array receivers using cooperative communication and a massive multiple-input-multiple-output approaches for reliable underwater acoustic communications; (C) study cooperative and delay-tolerant network architecture and protocols for sensor and AUV networking; (D) research AUV-aided localization, time synchronization, and data aggregation methods; and (E) develop an innovative three dimensional (i.e., aerial, ocean surface, and underwater) offshore assets monitoring system using AUV/drone-assisted heterogeneous networks.******The proposed project will bring in new technology advancements to enable future IoUT. It will provide an ideal platform for HQP training. Its applications will bring in significant growth for ocean exploration and the offshore oil and gas industry. It will extend Canada and Newfoundland's role in advancing communication research and technology for exploring the underwater territory.