Kyocera claims to achieve data transmission speeds of 5.2Gbps over short distances using Underwater Wireless Optical Communication (UWOC) technology. This is approximately 2.5 times faster than conventional underwater connections. The technology is designed to enable real-time exchange of large amounts of data for ocean research and underwater robots.
Underwater communication has traditionally faced limitations. Conventional audio communication only achieves a few Mbps, making it difficult to share high-resolution video and large datasets directly. This is a serious bottleneck for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and drones that perform maritime surveys, structural inspections, and resource exploration.
Kyocera therefore developed a UWOC system. In a freshwater laboratory, the technology achieved a transmission speed of 5.2Gbps. This performance places the technology among the fastest wireless underwater communication systems ever demonstrated.
Proprietary communication standard for underwater data
The secret lies in the customized Physical (PHY) Layer that Kyocera developed for this application. Standard specifications for wireless communication borrow heavily from wired and general wireless technologies. These often fail underwater. Kyocera’s communication standards, on the other hand, offer stability and capacity for underwater data transfer.
Kyocera expanded the underwater bandwidth to over 1 GHz by developing an optical front-end circuit that fully utilizes the bandwidth characteristics of optical semiconductor components.
With the higher bandwidth, users can send significantly more information in the same amount of time. Live underwater video streaming, sensor data transfer, and collaborative inspections become much faster and more reliable. The system achieves a data transfer rate approximately 2.5 times that of conventional underwater optical communication.
The technology has potential for various applications. These include real-time HD video sharing from AUVs, high-precision inspection of underwater structures, direct acquisition of large data volumes in ocean research, and simultaneous data collection from multiple underwater robots.
Further development should increase the communication distance and capacity. Kyocera expects that this will accelerate technological innovation in the maritime industry and academic research and contribute to the construction of a next-generation marine ICT infrastructure.
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