Impacts of 5G Network in Submarine Vs Airplane Communications
Though science has gone far, there are still limitations yet to overcome. These limitations stand as huge obstacles to the engineering body such that some doubt if the new trend of artificial intelligence’s supported technologies could solve them.
The idea of making everything possible for humans remains the utmost goal of engineers. Meanwhile, despite the efforts, some areas of science seem almost impossible to overcome despite the huge increasing inventions and the introduction of new technologies.
Water-to-surface communication ought to be a basic system that can be achieved easily, however, the reverse remains the case.
Communication from the water to the airspace had been a major challenge to the engineers. Though this had not been a major issue in the world of science since only a few instances due to requiring such communication to occur especially during search and rescue missions.
The increasing use of submarines and the unique benefits the water vehicle is offering to its users have made it mandatory for engineers to look further o how to overcome the limitations in its communication with the airspace.
Though few methods of communication used by divers and water research bodies seem to be working, the submarine cannot communicate directly to the airplane in the sky while inside the water.
Except the submarine resurfaces on the water, its communication components cannot respond to signals coming from the airplane in the sky, the same occurs in a reversed way that signals sent by the airplane cannot penetrate into the water for a receiver by the submarine.
This limitation has affected lots of the functionalities of the water vehicle. To some extent, many still doubt the overall safety of the submarine if it cannot have steady and consistent communication with the airplane in the sky except it resurfaces.
The limitation makes the locations of the submarine to be known since it has to resurface in order to communicate.
Besides that, it can render the underwater vehicle vulnerable in the case of serious mechanical breakdown if other safety precautions measures are not in place.
Though Wireless communication is working perfectly in the airspace, its ability to operate beyond the heart of the seas remains a limitation.
Historically, sonar has been in use for submarine water communication while radio waves have been in use for surface communication but establishing a connection between these two channels has been the problem.
Engineers believe that once that is resolved, under-water to the airspace communication barrier.
Researchers believe that planes that crashed into the water can be traced easily if the barrier in communication can be overcome. The success of that will make the underwater and earth surface a small community with high safety and accessibility.
A team of researchers from MIT’s Media Lab is currently working on how to transform the barrier to a breakthrough in science and technology.
According to Fadel Adib, an assistant professor, and lead researcher, “trying to cross the air-water boundary with wireless signals has been an obstacle. Our idea is to transform the obstacle itself into a medium through which to communicate.”
Meanwhile, according to a reporter, “Instead of trying to find one type of signal to transcend the air-water wall, the researchers are using an airborne radio wave sensitive enough to pick up the imprint that underwater sonar signals leave on the sea surface.
The team developed translational Acoustic-RF communication (TARF), which works by applying telecom’s new favorite bandwidth for IoT and 5g networks.”
The method the researchers are using to address the problem is to use the millimeter waves emitted from an airborne vehicle like an airplane or a drone using a radar so that messages picked from the water vibration are returned to the sensor since it is sensitive to tiny vibrations on the surface of the water in the form of very small waves.
And that is because the sensor has extremely high-frequency waves.
Below the water surface, the researchers are using a special type of Sonar that can produce tiny ripples for the sky-borne radar waves to pick up. The sonar signals will be responsible for transforming the messages into water ripples.
According to the media lab release, the signals will travel as pressure waves of different frequencies corresponding to different data bits.
For instance, when the transmitter wants to send a 0, it can transmit a wave traveling at 100Hz; for 1, it can transmit a 200Hz wave, etc. the ripples each signal which forms on the water surface will be tiny in a few micrometers height and they will be proportional to their frequencies.
Getting those ripples heard in the stormy sea will still stand as an obstacle since they are very small and delicate. In regard to that, the team said that sophisticated signal-processing algorithms have been developed to curb the situation, but that will not guarantee 100% transmission in the stormy sea. In fact, the team sees the technology as a ‘no near to perfection’ situation because of the obvious challenges.
Meanwhile, experts said such an invention can at least work as a one-way communication channel, meaning that the submarines may be able to send signals to drones and airplanes using the ripples but may not be able to receive the signal coming from the airspace.
Even when the team’s expectation is low for the research, many engineers believe it will be a very vital technology that could help in tracking any item under the sea.
