Radio Communication Model for Underwater WSN

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSN) experience severe communication problems due to large acoustic or electromagnetic (EM) signal attenuation. The propagation of acoustic signals in submarine media is possible with very low frequency signal carriers only, therefore reduced bandwidth, low transmission rates, thus extending transmission duration and diminishing battery life. Requirements to increase transmission data rates for UWSN have made it attractive to explore the possibilities of higher frequency EM transmissions. Recent experiments show that huge EM signal losses are to be expected in the near field of the transmitting antenna, however experiencing little additional reductions thereafter. The lack of a unified simple analytical model based on Maxwell´s equations that can be used as a design tool for these wireless submarine links, validated against published experimental results, is a problem that has been solved in this paper.