Image transmission in Underwater Ad-Hoc Networks: Challenges and Initial Solutions

Abstract

Due to its applications in marine research, oceanographic, and undersea exploration, underwater communication has been recently under intense investigation. Even though the applications in this field can be still considered frontier work, several studies have been recently reported. In this paper, we first provide an overview of the latest progresses in the undersea transmissions techniques, mainly focusing on autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) ad-hoc networks. After introducing the potential and challenges of underwater communication, we highlight the state-ofthe art techniques and algorithms which attempt to achieve underwater communications reliability. After assessing these techniques, it become clear how AUV networks suffer from major shortcomings when image transmission is considered. In this light, we finally propose two algorithms possibly able to improve the present limitations of image transmission performance in underwater networks.