Battery-free and Passive Wake-up Receiver for Underwater Communication

What is it about?

Underwater Wireless Networks (UWNs), together with Underwater Wireless Sensor Nodes (UWSNs), are key enablers for various underwater activities in the fields of research, surveillance, rescue, and even military usage. In order to fulfill their mission in remote areas and harsh environments, UWSNs must meet high standards. Since the deployment of such a device is very costly and labor extensive, a long lifetime, high reliability, as well as no maintenance, are highly desirable. However, to achieve this goal, the overall power consumption of a UWSN needs to be reduced. This paper presents a maintenance-free and energy-neutral wake-up receiver for underwater communication that targets the challenge of the energy limitations of underwater communication frontends.

Featured Image

Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Oceans carry a rich variety of biological and non-biological re- sources. These resources are crucial for human life and therefore exists a great need for close and continuous monitoring. Traditionally, underwater sensors have been used to record data during their deployment and later recovered again for data evaluation. For time-critical monitoring tasks like surveillance or environmental monitoring, this is not feasible. Therefore, there is a high demand for real-time underwater communication systems.