Experimental Evaluation of a WiFi Device in an Undersea Environment

Abstract

In undersea environment, development of low-cost communication module is highly important for dissemination of undersea wireless sensor networks. Some undersea wireless sensor network applications do not require high performance communication capability such as transmission distance. If the terrestrial low-cost communication module can be used in the undersea environment, it is possible to use the module in some undersea wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we evaluate the communication capability of a commercially available WiFi device in an undersea environment. In the experiment, we use a mobile access point as a sender node and an Android tablet as a receiver node. Through evaluations, we show that the transmission distance of WiFi device is around 0.1 m in an undersea environment. In addition, we evaluate a fish farm monitoring system based on WiFi modules through simulations.