Converged communications with heterogeneous media is an important research topic for seamless integration of the terrestrial, marine, aeronautic, and astronautic spaces. The convergence of underwater, water surface, and over-the-air communication networks has great research value and significance in various applications such as marine monitoring, natural resource exploration, and national defense. Our research focuses in this area include: Integrated hetero-media underwater communications, integrated hetero-media water-surface communications, prototypes and applications for converged communication networks.
Research focus 1: Integrated underwater communications with heterogeneous media
The research objective is to develop integrated acoustic and optical underwater communication and detection systems. Research topics include: novel acoustic and optical sensors, integrated acoustic and laser communication systems with QoS support, integrated acoustic and optical localization and detection systems.
Research topic 2: Integrated water-surface communications with heterogeneous media
The research objective is to bridge underwater and water-surface networks with floating stations serving as the gateway. Research topics include: water-surface radio channel modeling, wireless communications and ad-hoc networking over water surface, integrated communications systems over acoustic, optical, and radio channels.
Research topic 3: Prototypes and applications for converged communications
The research objective is to develop prototypes and applications for converged terrestrial, marine, and aeronautic communication systems. Research topics include: develop a holistic information platform that integrates underwater communication networks (acoustic and optical media), water-surface communication networks (radio and optical media), and data center with data processing and mining capability; Build a converged information system that integrates heterogeneous information systems including the Beidou satellite navigation system, marine satellite communication system, wireless ad hoc networks, and under-water sensor network; develop novel applications for localization, navigation, detection, tracking, and multi-media communications based on the converged network prototype.
