Jowi Morales Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
Shadowself There have been subsurface optical communications link experiments at multi Gbps data rates for well over a decade. The issue in the open ocean is variability of the ocean itself — everything from particles in the water to currents. In one set of experiments well over half a decade ago the organization was able to do a link with reasonable bit error rates at 10 km or more. They moved 10 km down the coast at the same distance from shore and could not close the link at 1 km no matter what they tried. The details of that set of experiments are not public since those experiments were done for the U.S. DoD. The short range (<< 1 km) optical is barely more useful than the very short range RF communications (typically << 100 m and sometimes << 10 m). High data rates are ineffective without distance — not unlike the optical bridges back in the 80s that could only go 100 m or so (and were useless during heavy rain or fog). The goal needs to be a reasonable data rate (> 1 Mbps) at a reasonable bit error rate (< 1e-6) at > 20 km at depths over the range of < 1 m to > 100 m. When that is accomplished then press releases will be well justified. Reply
TomsFriendLarry This was my reaction as well, until I saw they were in FRESH water. I don't have knowledge of freshwater optics. However, sugar water optics might offer some perspective or at least be amusing. Reply
sotaskimmer I'm interested in this multi-Mbps acoustic tech the author mentions. I've been a hobbyist in this space for a few years and I haven't heard of any devices achieving throughput anywhere near that high, even theoretically. The attenuation and SNR of ultrasound in any natural water environment is pretty severe. The tech in the article is interesting but I'm struggling to see the real applications (i.e. not giddy engineer suggestions) given the constraints of water clarity, LOS, and signal lock of a 1D beam in unstable 3D space. Small ROVs don't have the inertia to lock this kind of signal at any kind of distance, and large ROVs are tethered for a reason; of things go sour, you pull it up. In either size case, the risk of loss is huge without a tether and these constraints. Maybe the Navy for ship-sub or sub-sub comms without surfacing? Reply
GenericUsername109 This may work with tap water, but good luck running this in actual natural water somewhere outside. It gets rather dirty when a drone or rain stirs up the sediments. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/kyocera-develops-wireless-underwater-optical-communications-technology-uses-lasers-to-achieve-5-2-gbps-at-short-distances#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.