Underwater backscatter networking

© 2019 Association for Computing Machinery. We present Piezo-Acoustic Backscatter (PAB), the first technology that enables backscatter networking in underwater environments. PAB relies on the piezoelectric effect to enable underwater communication and sensing at near-zero power. Its architecture is...

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Main Authors: Jang, Junsu, Adib, Fadel
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/137147
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author Jang, Junsu
Adib, Fadel
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Jang, Junsu
Adib, Fadel
author_sort Jang, Junsu
collection MIT
description © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery. We present Piezo-Acoustic Backscatter (PAB), the first technology that enables backscatter networking in underwater environments. PAB relies on the piezoelectric effect to enable underwater communication and sensing at near-zero power. Its architecture is inspired by radio backscatter which works well in air but cannot work well underwater due to the exponential attenuation of radio signals in water. PAB nodes harvest energy from underwater acoustic signals using piezoelectric interfaces and communicate by modulating the piezoelectric impedance. Our design introduces innovations that enable concurrent multiple access through circuit-based frequency tuning of backscatter modulation and a MAC that exploits the properties of PAB nodes to deliver higher network throughput and decode network collisions. We built a prototype of our design using custom-designed, mechanically fabricated transducers and an end-to-end battery-free hardware implementation.We tested our nodes in large experimental water tanks at the MIT Sea Grant. Our results demonstrate singlelink throughputs up to 3 kbps and power-up ranges up to 10 m. Finally, we show how our design can be used to measure acidity, temperature, and pressure. Looking ahead, the system can be used in ocean exploration, marine life sensing, and underwater climate change monitoring.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1371472023-06-22T17:38:37Z Underwater backscatter networking Jang, Junsu Adib, Fadel Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery. We present Piezo-Acoustic Backscatter (PAB), the first technology that enables backscatter networking in underwater environments. PAB relies on the piezoelectric effect to enable underwater communication and sensing at near-zero power. Its architecture is inspired by radio backscatter which works well in air but cannot work well underwater due to the exponential attenuation of radio signals in water. PAB nodes harvest energy from underwater acoustic signals using piezoelectric interfaces and communicate by modulating the piezoelectric impedance. Our design introduces innovations that enable concurrent multiple access through circuit-based frequency tuning of backscatter modulation and a MAC that exploits the properties of PAB nodes to deliver higher network throughput and decode network collisions. We built a prototype of our design using custom-designed, mechanically fabricated transducers and an end-to-end battery-free hardware implementation.We tested our nodes in large experimental water tanks at the MIT Sea Grant. Our results demonstrate singlelink throughputs up to 3 kbps and power-up ranges up to 10 m. Finally, we show how our design can be used to measure acidity, temperature, and pressure. Looking ahead, the system can be used in ocean exploration, marine life sensing, and underwater climate change monitoring. 2021-11-02T18:04:01Z 2021-11-02T18:04:01Z 2019 2021-06-22T17:54:26Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/137147 Jang, Junsu and Adib, Fadel. 2019. "Underwater backscatter networking." SIGCOMM 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 Conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication. en 10.1145/3341302.3342091 SIGCOMM 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 Conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) MIT web domain
spellingShingle Jang, Junsu
Adib, Fadel
Underwater backscatter networking
title Underwater backscatter networking
title_full Underwater backscatter networking
title_fullStr Underwater backscatter networking
title_full_unstemmed Underwater backscatter networking
title_short Underwater backscatter networking
title_sort underwater backscatter networking
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/137147
work_keys_str_mv AT jangjunsu underwaterbackscatternetworking
AT adibfadel underwaterbackscatternetworking