MIT researchers have demonstrated the first system for ultra-low-power underwater networking and communication, which can transmit signals across kilometer-scale distances.

This technique, which the researchers began developing several years ago, uses about one-millionth the power that existing underwater communication methods use. By expanding their battery-free system’s communication range, the researchers have made the technology more feasible for applications such as aquaculture, coastal hurricane prediction, and climate change modeling.

“What started as a very exciting intellectual idea a few years ago—underwater communication with a million times lower power—is now practical and realistic. There are still a few interesting technical challenges to address, but there is a clear path from where we are now to deployment,” says Fadel Adib, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the Signal Kinetics group in the MIT Media Lab.

The team plans to build battery-free underwater networks.

Deep Sea exploration is about to get more accessible. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed and demonstrated a technology that can transmit underwater signals spanning kilometers with a relatively low reader transmit power.

The researchers are calling their tech Van Atta Acoustic Backscatter (VAB), which can be used to map the pulse of the ocean. A submerged network of underwater sensors can continuously measure ocean vital signs like the temperature, pressure, and dissolved carbon dioxide to create more accurate climate change models and monitor the efficacy of carbon capture technologies, explained the researchers in their study.