Underwater communication via compact mechanical sound generation

Effective communication with underwater remotely operated vehicles (UROV) can be difficult to accomplish. In water, simple radio communication is quickly dissipated at higher frequencies and lower frequencies require a large antenna, which may not be practical in all applications. Light can also be used to communicate with the vehicles, but requires line of sight between the source and detector. Sound can also be used as a communication method, and has many advantages. It can propagate long distances underwater and does not require line of sight to work effectively. However, generating sound electronically underwater requires a large power speaker to produce tones loud enough to travel far distances. Generating sound mechanically can take advantage of physical resonance and produce high intensity tones in a compact device with a relatively low power input. This can allow for a compact, high intensity method to communicate with remotely operated underwater vehicles.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Ubellacker, Wyatt

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• H. Harry Asada.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/83751

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/83751