Satellites and mobile phones, built on international standards, help the world get connected. But the communications technology we use on land does not work well underwater. As water covers over 70 percent of the earth's surface, NATO has sponsored research into establishing the first ever digital underwater communications standard.
The NATO STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) located in La Spezia, Italy, has developed a standard for underwater acoustic communications called JANUS, which has now been recognized as a NATO standard by all NATO Allies. This marks the first time ever for a digital underwater communication protocol to be acknowledged at international level and opens the way to develop many exciting underwater communication applications.
TRANSCRIPT:
INTERVIEW JOÃO ALVES, UNDERWATER COMMUNICATIONS PROJECT LEADER, RESEARCH DEPARTMENT, CMRE
1. (00:00-00:39) So, we need to look at underwater communication as an enabler not as an end per se. We are moving into a paradigm of autonomous vehicles with more and more robotics systems being deployed that can actually take the man out of dangerous situations. And to really take out the potential of this technology, we want to look at ways of having that networking, having them exchanging data so that we can have more of them, have true cooperation between robotic systems, being supported by underwater communications.
2. (00:41-01:03) An important point to make is that this standard that we are promoting does not have the intention of overriding the developments of the manufacturers. The objective is to provide simple initial means to exchange data. So it’s a Lingua Franca that will go alongside the native technologies that the manufacturers employ.
3. (01:04-01:13) So, JANUS basically defines the translation from bits to sound. So (we are) talking about transmitting sound waves.
4. (01:14-01:52) Right here behind me in the beautiful Gulf of La Spezia there is the CMRE submerged test bed for underwater communications called the LOON, which stands for Littoral Ocean Observatory Network. It is basically a set of instrumentation that is deployed on the seabed, cabled to shore to a container, building a lab that is also in my back, and all cabled to our premises so that we can run experiments with this equipment that is actually deployed at sea, we can run these experiments from our offices.
5. (01:53-02:20) Another level that we added to this was opening this infrastructure to outside collaborators. We have a number of institutions that have used the LOON in the past, and are using the LOON now. So, the idea is to use this as a catalyst, as an infrastructure that help us pushing forward the technology of underwater communications.
6. (02:21-02:42) Up until now, there were no standards for digital underwater communications. NATO is in this respect a leader as it pushed the first such standard that enables equipment from different sources, different manufacturers to exchange data.
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