AURA - Antenna for Underwater Radio Communications

The need of monitoring aqueous environments and to have reliable communications with or between underwater vehicles has led to extensive research on underwater wireless communications.
AURA is an antenna for underwater radio communications and respective operation method. In particular, it is an antenna for underwater radio communications comprising an automatic frequency-tuneable circuit between a first frequency and a second frequency. This allows to automatically obtaining a variable directional radiation pattern by the antenna device in order to select a directional radiation pattern for improving the radio signal coupling with another antenna.

- Challenge | Opportunity
Acoustic and optical systems are the most frequently used in underwater communication applications. However, both technologies present limitations and disadvantages that radio frequency systems do not have.
Acoustic systems have poor performance in shallow water, limited bandwidth due to the low frequencies used, may have an impact on marine life, and the ambient noise level could be a limiting factor for communication performance. On the other hand, optical systems are very susceptible to turbidity and fouling particles, and they require line-of-sight and thus precise alignment.
This technology overcomes some of these limitations since it is not affected by turbidity, can operate in non-line-of-sight, is immune to acoustic noise, and allows high bandwidths (up to 100 Mbit/s) at very close range.