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Underwater Acoustic Networks - the FP7 UAN project

A. Caiti, acaiti@dsea.unipi.it
ISME, Universita di Genova, Via Opera Pia, 16145 Genova, Italy
T. Husoy, thor.husoy@kongsberg.com
Kongsberg Maritime AS, Strandpromenaden 50, 3183 Horten, Norway
S.M. Jesus, sjesus@ualg.pt,
ISR, Universidade do Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, PT-8005-139 Faro, Portugal.
I. Karasalo, ilkka.karasalo@foi.se
FOI, Gullfossgatan 6, 16490 Kista, Sweden
R. Massimelli, massimelli@selex-se.com
SELEX SI, Via Hermanda 6b, 16154 Genova, Italy
A. Munafò, munafo@dsea.unipi.it
ISME, Universita di Genova, Via Opera Pia, 16145 Genova, Italy
Tor Arne Reinen, tor.a.reinen@sintef.no
SINTEF, Strindvein 4, 7465 Trondheim, Norway
and
A. Silva, asilva@ualg.pt
ISR, Universidade do Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, PT-8005-139 Faro, Portugal.

Comments: download pdf file.
Ref.: IFAC - PapersOnline, vol #9 (Part 1), pp. 220-225, Arenzano (Italy), July 2012.

Abstract
The EU-funded project UAN - Underwater Acoustic Network aims at conceiving, developing and testing at sea an innovative and operational concept for integrating in a unique communication system submerged, surface and aerial sensors with the objective of protecting off-shore and coastline critical infrastructures. A crucial aspect of the project consisted in the use of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) as mobile nodes in the underwater acoustic communication network. In particular, AUVs have the role of adapting the network geometry to the variation of the acoustic channel. This paper reports on the project concept and vision as well as on the progress of its various development phases. The recent at-sea successes that have been demonstrated within the UAN framework are detailed and results of the final UAN project demonstration, UAN11, held in the May of 2011, are reported. The UAN network was in operation for five continuous days with up to five nodes, of which three of them were mobile nodes.


Acknowledgement: This work was funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7) under contract 225669. The authors also thank all the UAN team and in particular those having participated in the UAN'11 sea trial.