Northeastern University could help develop the first underwater smartphone or wireless router after luring a highly cited researcher who is pioneering subaquatic Wi-Fi.
Tommaso Melodia, 38, came to Northeastern in August from SUNY Buffalo and brought with him his research and his lab — which sent the first underwater tweet a few years ago.
Less than a year into his stint at Northeastern, Melodia has already won a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to expand his research, this time focusing on the possibility of real-time underwater video streaming.
In layman's terms, his technology allows for bits of data to be transmitted over acoustic waves. In historical terms, this is the newest frontier in the transmission of information — like what we were trying to do with wires 50 years ago. It was a matter of carefully modifying frequencies and amplitudes to get the most efficient transmissions. Melodia is working on ways to adapt data to transmit through sound waves in water — similar process, different medium.
The consequences are far-reaching, from unlocking mysteries of the ocean to enabling scuba divers and submarines to communicate via Wi-Fi.
"This technology enables you to have a signal on a boat saying this is the location on the scuba diver, to enable voice communications amongst divers and monitor underwater activities of small submarines smuggling illegal substances," said Melodia, associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering, and head of the Wireless Networks and Embedded Systems Lab (WiNES Lab).
"There are lots of environmental implications — you can monitor level of pollution and send warnings to the authorities, or even tweet directly to authorities."
Melodia's research progressed last year to allow the first files to be wirelessly uploaded to the Internet under water. He envisions these developments making search and rescue missions easier, especially when it comes to locating missing planes, and enabling an entirely new industry of underwater, Wi-Fi-enabled robotics.
"Having a better understanding of underwater acoustic propagation helps us make better devices to produce the pings of a black box," he said.
Sending data across water has another interesting application: the human body. The next phase of Melodia's work at Northeastern will likely encompass intra-body networks: the kind of Wi-Fi communication that would allow tiny implanted medical devices to detect and treat ailments in real time. The human body is made of 60 percent water, so it's not a leap to think that underwater Wi-Fi may soon change not just how we communicate, but how long we live as well.
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